


LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Chap._lJ.ACopyright Soli...!-* 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 



BOOKS BY 

REV. DAVID GREGG 

New Epistles from Old Lands, 

Suggested by a tour of the Holy Land. 12mo. 366 
pages. Illustrated* Cloth, $1.50. 

Makers of the American Republic. 
Historical Studies of Colonial Times. 12mo. 405 
pages. Cloth, $1.50. 

Our Best Moods* A series of discourses. 

12mo. 362 pages. Frontispiece Portrait. Cloth, $1.25. 

Facts that Call for Faith* 
Masterly appeals on the great themes of eternal life. 
J2mo. 314 pages* Cloth, $1.00. 

The Heaven Life; or, Stimulus for Tv/o 
Worlds. 
J2mo. 168 pages. Cloth, 75 cents. 

The Things of Northfield; and Other 

Things which should be in every Church. 
J2mo* 144 pages* doth, 50 cents. 

Ideal Young Men and "Women. Addresses 
to Young People. 

12mo. 1 14 pages. Cloth, 50 cents. 

Testimony of the Land to the Book ; or, 

the Evidential Value of Palestine. 

12mo. Leatherette, 35 cents. 

E. B. TREAT& CO., 241-243 W. 23d St., N.Y. 




THE PROMISED LAND, VIEWED FROM MOUNT NEBO. 



NEW EPISTLES 
from OLD LANDS 



BY 

DAVID GREGG 

M 

Pastor Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church, Brooklyn. 

AUTHOR OF 

TESTIMONY OF THE LAND TO THE BOOK," "OUR BEST MOODS," 
" MAKERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC," " FACTS THAT CALL 
FOR FAITH," "IDEAL YOUNG MEN AND WOMEN," ETC. 



Written in the light of modern researches, based upon the 
Author 's recent travels i)i the East. 



ILL USTRA TED 



NEW YORK 

B. TREAT & COMPANY 

241-243 West 23D Street 
I 900 

6 



lT HE Lit**** 
Of CONG** 11 ' 

ASH11I5I2S 



TWO COPIES RECEIVED. 
Library ofCfln 
Office of the 

Dtu2~lgoq 

* eSi3Ur of Copyright 



vV 6 



^ 



48594 

Copyright 

By E. B. TREAT & COMPANY, 

1899. 



SECOND COPY, 



PUBLISHER'S NOTE. 



The title of this volume is happily taken from 
that of its first chapter, which is a sermon of sal- 
utations from some of the ancient churches of the 
East, which the author delivered to his own 
people on his return from a six months' journey 
in Bible lands. The conception was so beautiful 
and impressive that it was very naturally followed 
by a series of other sermons which are here 
gathered, under the same general title. They 
were all suggested and illustrated by different 
scenes in the author's journeyings. 

It will be a new impression to many as they see 
how fully the doctrines of the Bible are taught by 
picture and incident, by landscape and historic 
memorial. The contrast of the fertile plain of 
Sharon with the stony wilderness of Judea, the 
suggestive "leaving of her waterpot" by the 
woman who has learned that Christ has the living 
water, the "herdsman of Tekoa" whose concep- 
tion of practical everyday righteousness makes 
him the prophet Amos, the idyllic story of Ruth 
the gleaner in the fields of Bethlehem, Mount 
Carmel and its tragic companion of Baal and 



6 PUBLISHER'S NOTE. 

Jehovah, the psalm-country of David and the 
reverent praises sung in old-time churches, the 
sacred mountains and lofty and far-reaching views 
of the kingdom of God — each of these has its 
message to the devout heart, and a less eloquent 
interpreter than our author might find in the 
" New Epistles from Old Lands," other epistles 
in the same correspondence so pleasantly begun. 

Dr. Gregg has unusual skill in natural and 
vivid description of scenes worth remembering, 
while not forgetting to bring out a clear and 
strong religious lesson from what he describes, 
and his sermons are not only bright and interest- 
ing, but among the most practical and wholesome. 
As here presented they will be a pleasant re- 
minder to those who heard them, and will profit- 
ably reach a much larger number who will find 
in them new appreciation and love of the Bible 
and new spiritual insight and strength. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER. PAGE 

I. — New Epistles from Old Lands, . . .17 
II — What God Is to His People, and What He 

Is Not. .... 47 

III. — The Things We Should Leave for Christ 75 
IV. — The Plumbline or, the Herdsmen of Tekoa ioi 
V — Why Not the Men as Well as the Women? 
or, a Family from the Seashore of Gali- 
lee, . . . . . . .127 

VI. — Mount Ebal a Voice of God, . . . . 157 

VII. — A Hebrew Idyl, or, a Study of the Book 

of Ruth 185 

VIII. — The Hosanna-Day in the Life of Jesus 

Christ, . .... 211 

IX. — Mount Carmel, or, the Religion of God 

Put to the Test and Found True, -237 

X. — Soul-Sight, or, a Story of Jericho, . . 261 

XI — The Songs of the Psalm-Country, . . . 289 

XII. — The Prophets of the Holy Land, . .317 

XIII —The Sacred Heights of Palestine, or, the 

Uses of the Mountains, . . . .341 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



The Promised Land, Viewed from Mount 

Nebo, Frontispiece. 

PAGE 

Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives, . . 16 
The Wilderness of Judea, . . . .46 
The River Abana Flowing Through Damas- 
cus ' . . . 54 

The Woman of Samaria with the Water- 
Pot, 74 

The Prophets Amos and Nahum, from the 

Frieze, Boston Public Library, . . .100 
The Sea of Galilee with the Jordan Outlet. 126 
The Sea of Galilee — Fishing Scene, . . 142 
Mount Ebal and Nablus (Shechem), . .156 
In the Harvest Field of Boaz, . . .184 
Road Leading to Jerusalem Over Mount of 

Olives to Gethsemane 210 

Mount Carmel and the Sea 236 

The Samaritan Inn on the Way to Jericho, 260 
Mount Lebanon and Its Surviving Cedars, . 288 
Group of Prophets, from the Frieze, Boston 

Public Library 316 

Mount Hermon with Its Perpetual Snow, . 340 




PRELUDE. 

HEN my people generously granted me a six 
months' absence for the purpose of educa- 
tional and religious travel, I had no sooner 
set sail than I was confronted with the question: What 
will you preach about the first Sabbath after your re- 
turn? I knew that a vast audience would be present, 
and that the coming home would be as great an event 
as the going away was. The people would be filled with 
interest and expectation. The first service after my 
return would be' an occasion. A voice within said: 
" Keep that day in mind, plan for it, work for it, get 
ready for it ! " This plan suddenly came to me, and 
it seemed like an inspiration : Gather salutations from 
the churches of Christ abroad, and bring these to your 
people. Make the first service after your return " A 
Salutation Service." This plan I carried out, and the 
result is this present sermon. Some of the churches 
which I visited not only sent salutations, but offered 
special public prayer for Lafayette Avenue Presbyte- 
rian Church. My church, on my return, reciprocated 
this brotherly conduct by holding a special prayer 
service to commend to God these churches across the 

sea. 

David Gregg. 



NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS 



New Epistles from Old Lands. 

" The churches of Christ salute you." — Rom. xvi. 16. 

I denominate this service " A Salutation Ser- 
vice," because, when travelling in foreign lands, I 
was charged, by many churches and by many dis- 
ciples of Jesus, to bring you their loving greet- 
ings. Some of these greetings I bring in written 
form. These epistles which I bring are voices 
from across the sea, and they enable the churches 
and friends there to speak for themselves and give 
their own messages of good-will. 

The most interesting things which I saw abroad 
were the churches of Jesus Christ. As I travelled 
from continent to continent, their salute was my 
greatest joy. When I stepped into new territory, 
it was for them that I first searched. And this 
is the glad fact which I have to tell you to-day : 
" In all my journeyings I was never able to get 
out of sight of the Church of Jesus Christ. I 
found Christ's Church everywhere. I found it in 



1 8 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

the land of Calvin, and of Knox, and of Wesley, 
and of Luther, and of Zwingli, and of Savonarola, 
and of d'Aubigne. I found it in the land of the 
Pharaohs, and in the land of Naaman, and in the 
land of the Nazarene. I found it in the valley of 
the Jordan, on the slopes of Lebanon, and on the 
shores of the Sea of Galilee. I found it in Jeru- 
salem, and in Bethlehem, and in Nazareth. I 
found it in places I least expected to find it. 

Take Nazareth, for example. My experience 
there was striking. Before I left for the Orient 
I said to myself, " There is one place in Palestine 
in which I greatly desire to preach, and that place 
is Nazareth." I wished to preach there a sermon 
which I had written upon the unbelief of Naza- 
reth. That was the only manuscript sermon which 
I took with me into the Orient. When I reached 
Cairo, the brethren of Egypt compelled me to 
preach there and I had to take my only sermon. 
Alas for my Nazareth plan ! I could not repeat 
my one sermon there, for the party I travelled with 
heard it in Cairo. But the whole ordering was of 
the Lord. Nazareth has changed. The city, which 
once rushed Jesus to the brow of its hill to hurl 
Him headlong to death, to-day honors Jesus. The 
churches of Jesus loom up there around the car- 
penter shop where Jesus once worked as the de- 
spised and rejected of men. Outside of lands 
commonly known as Christendom, Nazareth is the 
most Christian city that I visited in all my tour. 



NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 19 

This was my Sabbath Day's experience in Naz- 
areth : In the morning I was wakened by the sweet 
chimes of Sabbath bells rung in the belfries of the 
Greek and Episcopal churches in different parts of 
the city. At eleven o'clock I attended divine ser- 
vice in the White Tent of our camp, which stood 
by the side of the noted well called after the 
mother of Jesus. In the early afternoon I walked 
through the streets of the city and found every 
street wrapped in sabbatic stillness. Not a shop 
was open, not a sign of traffic was visible. Greater 
New York has no such Sabbath keeping as that. 
London, in Christian England, has no such Sab- 
bath keeping as that. On one street I found a 
branch of the British Bible Society. On another 
street a Christian dispensary. On another, a 
Christian hospital. On another, a Sabbath-school 
crowded to the door, and there I heard the Naza- 
rene children sing, in Arabic, the very hymns I 
have heard our Brooklyn children sing, and sing 
them to the same tunes. On another street I 
found worshippers going to and coming from an 
open church. In the latter part of the afternoon, 
by special invitation, I attended a Christian wed- 
ding in the Greek church. I had previously vis- 
ited the bride and had made her a wedding present 
in the shape of a gold coin; and hence I occupied 
the chief seat of honor on that occasion. As the 
day passed into twilight the church bells rang 
again and chimed the Sabbath evening vespers. 



20 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

But the Sabbath was not over in Nazareth. As 
the darkness settled over the historic hills of 
Christ's old home, suddenly I saw a lighted cross 
shine out in the air. I followed it, curious to 
know why it was there, and who put it there. It 
lured me to a Christian home. It was a window 
built into the gable of a Nazarene's house. The 
man was a Christian, and built this cross into his 
house, that every time he lighted the lights of his 
home the symbol of his faith might shine out into 
the darkness and become his public testimony and 
his public declaration that Christ crucified is the 
only hope for his fellow-townsmen. When the 
time for our evening service in our White Tent 
drew near, and I was getting ready to preach, I 
heard a Christian hymn sounding down the hill 
over the housetops. It was the hymn, " He is 
Risen," and it was sung to the old familiar tune. 
I followed the sound full of wonder, asking the 
question, Who can 'these sweet singers be? As 
the result of my search, I found one of the most 
charming home-scenes I ever saw — a young hus- 
band and wife and two fair children. The chil- 
dren nestled together in their crib, and the pa- 
rents were crooning them to sleep with the hymn of 
the Christ of Nazareth. These parents had found 
Christ in the English Church mission of their 
city, and could both speak English. I invited 
them to come to our tent service, but they in- 
sisted that our whole camp should come to the 



NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 21 

church in their house. This we did, and I 
preached to them and to our camp and to the 
neighbors hastily gathered in, an extempore ser- 
mon which I had gathered from the fields of the 
Holy Land, which a great scholar has called " The 
Fifth Gospel." 

I found the Church of Jesus Christ everywhere, 
and in places where I least expected to find it. 
The Church is not local, it is universal. 

From what I saw abroad, I am convinced of two 
things. The first is this : The Church of Christ 
has been the one great power of the past which 
has enriched and ennobled and uplifted the world. 
The second thing is this : If the world in the fu- 
ture is to have an ennobling and a purifying and 
uplifting power, the Church must be that power. 

I saw the world's great works of art and paint- 
ing and sculpture, and these led me to the Church. 
It was the Church that inspired them, and fos- 
tered them, and brought them down to posterity. 
The great ambition of the geniuses of the past was 
to so sculpture a piece of marble, so paint a can- 
vas, so produce a musical composition, so rear a 
vast structure that these masterpieces of theirs 
might be considered worthy of the acceptance and 
use of the Church. The great canvasses in the 
Vatican at Rome, and in the Pitti Palace at Flor- 
ence, are churchly canvasses. If the Church of 
Christ had never existed, these would never have 
been called into being. And what shall I say of 



2 2 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

the great cathedrals of the world, in most of which 
I worshipped ! These are religion in stone ; these 
are the voices of architecture crying, " Hosanna to 
the Son of David. " Blot out the Church of Christ 
from the past of the world, and you leave little 
reason why any man to-day should travel. 

I had large fellowship with the churches of 
Christ while absent from you, and here is a bud- 
get of letters from these churches, the tangible 
evidence of that fellowship. 

In presenting these salutations I wish you to 
note this — that all continents of earth are gath- 
ered this morning within the four walls of this 
temple. They are here by representation. This 
budget of letters is the world in miniature. If 
we speak of the world as existing in cities : Jeru- 
salem, and Athens, and Rome, and Cairo, and 
Beyrout, and London, and Edinburgh are here. 
If we speak of the world as existing in countries : 
Judea, and Greece, and Italy, and Egypt, and Eng- 
land, and Scotland are here. If we speak of the 
world as existing in continents, Europe and Asia 
and Africa are here. If we speak of the world as 
existing in the Christian denominations of the 
Church : Episcopalians, and Baptists, and Meth- 
odists, and Presbyterians, and Congregationalists 
are here. 

I shall take up these letters geographically, be- 
ginning at Jerusalem. 

A letter from Jerusalem ! That sounds apos- 



NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 2$ 

tolic. That is something like the Bible. With 
Jerusalem back of it, any letter written in the 
name of Jesus ought to be an inspiration. The 
city itself is eloquent. It is the cradle of Chris- 
tianity. Its voice is holy. On Mount Zion there 
is but one voice heard and that voice declares that 
the holy hill is full of God, " who was, and is, and 
is to come. " Jerusalem has always been the de- 
light of the muse of history. It is the theatre 
where God, in the person of His son, acted out 
the great drama of redemption. It is the city of 
the prophets, and of the Psalmist, and of the tem- 
ple, and of the cross, and of the Resurrection, and 
of Pentecost. The city has struck deep into the 
life of humanity. But has it no role to play in 
coming events ? Has it no future ? If not, what 
mean those gatherings which are being held in 
New York, and in London, and in Basle, with 
their plans for the purchase of Palestine as a home 
for the Jews ? I found the City of Jerusalem a 
different city from what it was twenty years ago. 
Jerusalem is again the city of the Jews. It has 
sixty thousand of a population, and forty thousand 
of these are the seed of Abraham. Twenty years 
ago there was only a handful of Jews in the Holy 
City. Old Testament prophecy is being fulfilled 
before our very eyes : " Ye shall be gathered one 
by one, O ye children of Israel, saith the Lord. " 
" I will take you, one of a city, and two of a fam- 
ily, and I will bring you to Zion." 



24 NEW EPISTLES EROM OLD LANDS. 

I spent two Sabbaths in Jerusalem. The first 
was spent in prayer and in singing the songs of 
the cross on the supposed site of Calvary. A con- 
verted Jewish rabbi directed our footsteps that 
day. On the second Sabbath I preached in the 
upper-room of the American consulate, and pre- 
sided over the administration of the Lord's Sup- 
per. The American and British consuls, with 
their families, were there, and some sixty others. 

My introduction to the Lord's work in the Holy 
City was unique. It was on this wise : Fifteen 
minutes after I passed through the Joppa Gate, I 
was accosted by a little red-headed Jewish boot- 
black, " Black your boots, sir. " I asked him who 
taught him to speak English. He replied, " I was 
taught in the Jewish Christian school. " "Take 
me to that school and I will give the price of a 
shine." He led me along the street over which 
Christ carried the cross, then turned in the direc- 
tion of the temple, and then into the Mission 
House. Two large schools were in full opera- 
tion. The work is carried on by the Church Mis- 
sionary Society of England. Most of the Chris- 
tian work in Palestine is carried on by this society. 
There is one notable exception, however; I mean 
the work at Tiberias which I visited when sailing 
the Lake of Galilee. The Tiberias work was 
started by the saintly McCheyne and Bonar of the 
Free Church of Scotland. I had the good fortune 
to meet all the workers of Palestine at a reception 



NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 25 

given by the British consul in his home, and I 
learned that night that the Prayer Book has been 
translated into Hebrew, also the New Testament; 
and that at every Easter in Jerusalem four thou- 
sand copies of the Bible are distributed to the pil- 
grims who crowd the city. As a result of my fel- 
lowship with these brethren of Judea, I bring this 
letter from the head of the Jewish work in Jeru- 
salem. 

From the Church at Jerusalem. 

My Dear Brother: I send you greetings and 
salaams from myself and our Hebrew-Christian 
brethren in Jerusalem. I greatly enjoyed my conver- 
sation with you at the English consulate in this city. 
Thank God, the work here has greatly prospered now 
for more than sixty years, for, though we have not a 
large community here, on account of want of business 
and trade, yet we are represented in all parts of the 
world, and notably in New York. 

As might be expected, we have much opposition 
here from the Jews, and just lately there has been an 
outbreak of violence toward those who come to us, and 
an endeavor, by physical force, to prevent the poor 
from taking even medicines from us. But it is now 
broken down for a time. The Gospel goes on win- 
ning its way among the people, as in olden days, the 
power of the Holy Ghost being manifested in the con- 
version of souls. We are working on in the city 
where our Lord was crucified by Jews and Gentiles, 
and we believe that the way is being prepared for the 
coming of Him who shall make it "the City of the 
Great King." 

We send our greetings to your great church, remem- 
bering that we have been privileged to have visits 
from its two notable pastors, Dr. Cuyler and yourself. 



26 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

and while we pray for blessings upon you all, we ask 
that we, too, may be remembered in your prayers, that 
a great ingathering of Jews may take place in the 
City of Zion, and that we may be faithful witnesses 
for Him "till he come." '"'Pray for the peace of 
Jerusalem; they shall prosper that love thee." 
I am yours, in the Lord Jesus, 

A. Hastings Kelk, 
Minister of Christ Church, Mount Zion, Jerusalem. 



My second letter is a voice from Athens. 

Athens ! There is a thrill in the very name. It 
is the embodiment of antiquity. It is one of that 
marvellous trinity of cities which has made human 
history great. The full trinity is Jerusalem, 
Athens, Rome. Athens follows Jerusalem in the 
order of time, and serves it by creating a univer- 
sal language for Jerusalem's universal Gospel; 
but it antedates Rome in the order of time and 
serves it by preparing the world for Rome's com- 
ing. In history Athens is set forth as Rome's 
schoolmaster. Jerusalem, Athens, Rome — these 
three cities are linked together in the cause of 
civilization; but especially are they linked to- 
gether in the cause of the Gospel. This is the 
order of service : Jerusalem originates and formu- 
lates the Gospel, it gives the world the cross. 
Athens, the head of Greece, voices the Gospel in 
its universal language, the Greek language, the 
most beautiful of all languages of the race, and 
passes it round the world in fitly spoken words, 



NEW EPISTLES EROM OLD LANDS. 27 

which the divine proverb says are " like apples of 
gold in baskets of silver." Rome opens highways 
to the ends of the earth for the golden-worded 
thoughts of Jesus, and then throws its universal 
laws around the standard-bearers of the cross, as 
they plant the cross in realms far and near. 
Athens is associated with the greatest greatness 
of the World. It is the place of great memories. 
Its air is as full of historical presences as the 
mellow autumn day is full of sunbeams. It is the 
place of great names. Here Solon made laws; 
and Socrates constructed philosophy ; and Demos- 
thenes delivered immortal orations ; and Aristotle 
worked out a system of logic ; and Plato built his 
academy ; and Sophocles and Euripides constructed 
their moral and sermonic plays in the theatre of 
^Eschylus. It was here that Phidias and Praxiteles 
sculptured ; and it was here that the famous archi- 
tects of Greece threw into space the Parthenon, 
the despair of the architects in all ages. Who 
can tell what service Athens has rendered to the 
world through such men as these ? As one of our 
most evangelic scholars has said : " Greek culture 
is the left arm of God visibly let down into his- 
tory, just as Christian culture is the right arm of 
God visibly let down into history." Certain it is, 
standing on the Acropolis of Athens, that city of 
magnificent ruins, and looking at the great forms 
of the past, which are visible to the mind's eye, 
the Acropolis commands the loftiest intellectual 



28 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

outlook of this whole globe. But the chief object 
in Athens to us, who are Christians, is not the 
Acropolis, with its Parthenon; not Socrates, not 
Plato, not Aristotle; but Mars Hill, at the foot of 
the Acropolis, with Paul, the chief of the Apos- 
tles, upon it, preaching Christ. Standing within 
bow-shot of the prison where Socrates was mar- 
tyred and within bow- shot of the platform where 
Demosthenes orated, with the grove where Plato 
had his academy near him ; within touch of the 
Parthenon, with its transfigured splendor; with a 
city crowded with the statues of false gods at his 
feet; the temples of Minerva, and Jupiter, and 
Theseus within the range of his voice, and almost 
within the very sweep of his gesture, Paul pro- 
claimed the one living and true God to Athens, 
and declared that it was absurd to think that the 
God of Heaven and earth should dwell in temples 
made with human hands. He dwelleth in the 
fulness of his Godhead bodily in Jesus Christ. 
Paul preached Jesus Christ to Athens. And was 
his voice heard, and is Christ known in Athens 
to-day? By the use of the words of a friend, in 
speaking of Paul on Mars Hill, I answer the ques- 
tion : "In a sea of temples, its waves toppling 
with mortal threats above his head, a solitary 
swimmer, a stranger, a Jew, clings to the assertion 
that God dwelleth not in temples, and that asser- 
tion after 1800 years outrides the hurricane." 
I found a Christian church in Athens, and wor- 



NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 29 

shipped in it, and partook of the Lord's Supper in 
it. As if to perpetuate the memory of the great- 
est event that ever took place there, it is called 
after the actor in that event ; it bears this name : 
"The Church of St. Paul." The sermon which 
I heard in St. Paul's Church the Sabbath I was 
in Athens, strange as it may seem, was nothing 
other than the elucidation and the enlargement 
and the completion of Paul's Mars Hill idea. It 
was Paul's sermon, with the ninteenth century put 
into it. The Episcopal rector who preached that 
day wrote this letter to you. I give it in excerpt 
form only : 

From the Church at Athens. 

91 Rue Triti, Athens. 
The St. Paul's Episcopal Church of Athens, ex- 
pressing the close communion that should exist among 
all the members of Christ's Church, however far apart, 
salutes the Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church, of 
Brooklyn, N. Y. The holy day on which I write is 
Whitsun-Day, and commemorates the marvellous out- 
pouring of the Spirit of Pentecost upon the Church of 
Jerusalem. That is the greatest blessing possible to 
our Christian churches. Brethren of America, join 
with us, your brethren in Athens, in seeking the pres- 
ence and power of the Pentecostal spirit. 
Very fraternally yours in Christ, 

F. R. Elliot. 

Now for the message from Cairo. 
Cairo was the first place in the Orient which I 
visited. There for the first time I set foot upon 



3© NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

a land in which Jesus actually had been. That 
fact thrilled me all the time I was in Egypt. But 
what saw I in Cairo? The Nile; the footprints 
of the Pharaohs ; yes. The land of Goshen in the 
distance ; the gigantic pyramids ; yes. But that 
which remains with me as greater than all, is what 
I saw there of the work of Christ as carried on by 
the United Presbyterian Church of the United 
States. This is one of the best equipped mis- 
sions in Christendom and one of the most blest. 
This Mission is the Church of Egypt. It covers 
the whole valley of the Nile. I had large fellow- 
ship with the brethren during my ten days' stay in 
the land which is known as the cradle of civiliza- 
tion. I was placed under a holy compulsion by 
the friends here and compelled to preach for them. 
Dr. Cuyler was the irresistible argument which 
they used. He had visited them and had preached 
for them, and I could not be the successor of Dr. 
Cuyler, at least in the valley of the Nile, if I re- 
fused to preach. I preached the only sermon I 
had with me, and I am glad I did, for it seems to 
have satisfied the Egyptians. The report of that 
sermon went as far as Jerusalem, for, on my re- 
turn to America a letter from Jerusalem awaited 
me asking for a copy of the sermon, coupled with 
a request that a ministerial brother might have 
permission to preach it there in my name. It was 
reported in Jerusalem by a young man who was in 
the audience at Cairo. The Egyptian Church has 



NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 3* 

won over ten thousand souls to Christ ; and it has 
set four hundred and fifty thousand Arabic Bibles 
at work for God in that land where Joseph reigned 
and where the infant Christ was saved from the 
sword of Herod. These Bibles of which I have 
spoken were printed for the Egyptian Church by 
the Presbyterian Publishing House at Beyrout. 
This is the Cairo letter : 

From the Church at Cairo, Egypt. 

The brethren of Cairo, and throughout Egypt, greet 
with heartiness the brethren of the Lafayette Avenue 
Presbyterian Church of Brooklyn. " Grace be unto 
you and peace from him, who was, and is, and is to 
come, and from the seven spirits which are before his 
throne." The workers for the Lord in the land which 
sheltered the infant Jesus have been twice gladdened 
by the visits of your beloved pastors, both of whom 
preached for us. Dr. Gregg's sermon was just what 
we needed ; and think of it, the American vice-con- 
sul was present to hear it! He has been years among 
us without attending church. The subject was, " The 
Guilt and Hurt of Non-Faith." Why does not the 
great Christian republic send out-and-out Christian 
men to represent it among the nations who own not 
our Redeemer? 

While we are on this line, suffer us to broaden our 
thought and give a word of earnest exhortation to 
Christians who travel. Brethren, bring all of your re- 
ligion with you when you come to Cairo. Make a 
covenant with your eyes not to see certain sights and 
scenes for which Cairo is noted. It is the tourists 
who pay the bills of iniquity kept up among us. With 
us the tourist is the heathen's sneer, and they often 
throw this sneer in our faces. For God's sake help 
us, when you come among us. The world will never 



32 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

be won to our faith until Christian missionaries are 
fortified by Christian tradesmen, Christian consuls, 
Christian sailors, Christian naval officers, and Chris- 
tian tourists. We out here belong to the old-fashioned 
type of believers. We hold to the inerrancy of the 
Bible. We believe also in the Shorter Catechism 
and teach it to our children, for without solid doctrine 
solid work is impossible. We love and cling to the 
Old-Testament Psalms, and, because they are in- 
spired, sing them, and them only, in worship. As 
Dr. Gregg said when he was among us : " It is heart- 
warming to hear the inspired songs of the souls which 
were first sung in the valley of the Jordan, and which 
graced the lips of Jesus Himself, echoed to-day with 
such heartiness in the valley of the Nile." We ask 
you to join us in the use of these songs of God. 

Now that you have suffered a word of exhortation, 
allow us to speak a word of congratulation. We con- 
gratulate you on your pastors. We know Dr. Cuyler 
as a stanch Princetonian, and we know Dr. Gregg as 
the son of a stanch Covenanter. We can trust men 
of these types. We know your zeal for the Lord and 
honor you for it. We feel strong in your strength 
though far away from you. Ever expecting much 
from you, we commend you to God and to the word of 
His grace. 

We have now reached Rome. But allow me to 
say our letter is not from the Church of Rome 
(so called). It is a letter from a church in Rome; 
but a church older than the Church of the Papacy. 
It is a letter from the Waldensian Church. The 
story of this Church, which comes straight from 
the Apostles, is the most moving story in all ec- 
clesiastical literature. This is its story in brief : 
Missionaries sent from Rome, in the apostolic 



NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 33 

days, planted churches in the valleys of the Alps. 
These became the Waldensian churches. When 
others yielded to the Roman See, these spurned 
the yoke of the Church of the Seven Hills, and 
kept their apostolicity intact. They were never 
subject to Rome. Rome changed, not they. 
Rome is the schismatic, not they. Rome was 
guilty of apostasy, not they. If they are ancient, 
Rome is new. They are Rome's condemnation. 
This is the reason Rome has persecuted them, and 
again and again decreed their extermination. If 
it had not been that the towering Alps were their 
fortresses, they would have been speedily crushed ; 
but they were the children of the mountains, and 
knew the fastnesses thereof and the narrow defiles, 
through which to escape. The mountains built 
their granite into them. They drank in glory and 
manhood and eternal fidelity from the snowy crests 
and thunder-riven peaks, and from the Alpine 
sky which was all silver and gold. Once the Ro- 
man hierarchy captured this whole nation of God's 
people. The Roman Pontiff lied to them and 
broke faith with them and took them by guile. 
He slew all but three hundred or so. These 
three hundred he banished. He drove them forth 
into the cold world penniless. Geneva, the city 
of Calvin, opened its gates to these exiles and res- 
cued them. But the exiles of the Alps were home- 
sick in Geneva. Out there beyond the lake was 
Mont Blanc, in its sunset glory, every day calling 
3 



34 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

them home. Rather than die of homesickness, 
they planned to return home, or die in the attempt. 
The story of their return has no parallel for daring 
and success. How they made the Alps echo with 
their psalms of thanksgiving to God for bringing 
them back ! Out of this nucleus the Waldensian 
churches were again grown. Friends from abroad 
helped .them ; Cromwell helped them, and so did 
Felix Neff and General Beckwith. These latter 
brought themselves and their fortunes to them, 
and cast in their lot with the Waldenses, and by 
their wealth gave them temples and gave them 
schools. These were the men who kept the love 
of liberty alive in Italy until the day that Gari- 
baldi and Victor Emmanuel championed the cause 
of liberty and made Italy free. It was they who 
raised the slogan cry, " A free church in a free 
state." When Victor Emmanuel bored his way 
into the city of Rome through the thick walls 
thereof, and smote into the dust the temporal 
power of the Pope, the Waldensian s were in the 
front ranks of his army. One of these Walden- 
sian soldiers was a colporteur, and in his knapsack 
he carried a bundle of Bibles into the Eternal 
City, and made the day not only a victory for Em- 
manuel and Garibaldi, but a victory for God's 
Word. Prior to that, no Bible was allowed in the 
city of Rome. Since that the Bible has been 
there as a free Book. 

The letter from the Waldensian Church is writ- 






NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 35 

ten by Dr. Prochet, a man who once preached in 
this pulpit, and proved himself an eminent scholar 
by the way he pleaded the cause of his Church. 
The salutation of the letter is written in Latin 
and reads : 

From the Waldensian Church at Rome. 

The Waldensian Church which is in the Eternal 
City salutes the angel and the elders and the brethren 
of the Church of Lafayette which is in Brooklyn. We 
have heard of your faith and your zeal, and it seems 
good to us to send you fraternal greetings. . . . Come 
over and help us. Seniores etjratres of Lafayette Pres- 
byterian Church, the Master has lavished His blessings 
upon you. He has given you selected servants to teach 
you the way of life. He has made His vivifying pres- 
ence felt among you. He has, in a word, given you 
five talents. May you, when you shall appear in the 
glorious mansions, be able to say, " Here, Lord, are 
the five talents which Thou hast given us; they have 
gained five talents more." That is the wish, that is 
the ardent prayer offered by the old Apostolic Evan- 
gelical Church of the Alps, now working in the Eter- 
nal City for the purpose of taking Rome for Christ. 

Now for a wholesale postponement ! A grand 
letter from Beyrout ! What shall be done with 
it ? The reading of it must be postponed. The 
letters from old Scotland, one from Dr. Hugh 
McMillan, the Moderator of the glorious Free 
Church, the church of Chalmers and Guthrie and 
Candlish ; one from Dr. Alexander Whyte, pastor 
of the Free St. George's, Edinburgh, the successor 
of Candlish — what shall be done with these ? The 



$6 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LAXDS. 

reading of these must be postponed. Letters from 
England — from Thomas Spurgeon; from F. B. 
Myer; from Dr. Newman Hall — what shall be 
done with these ? The reading of these must be 
postponed. * 

There is one letter which I cannot postpone, 
and that is the letter from the Wesley Chapel, 
London, the church where Wesley himself 
preached. I worshipped in that church two weeks 
ago to-day, and found it crowded from floor to 
ceiling. It will seat about twelve hundred people. 
The service which filled the church was "The 
English Harvest Home.*' It corresponds to our 
Thanksgiving Day. The church was decorated 
with fruits and flowers. These were arranged in 
beautiful designs upon a netting; and the netting 
was thrown around the pulpit and over the gal- 
leries and along the frames of the windows. The 
sermon, prayers, hymns, closing with the " Hal- 
lelujah Chorus," were all of the order of Harvest 
Home. Oh, how those Wesleyan [Methodists did 
sing ! Think of it ! Out from this church has 
gone an influence that has made twenty millions 
of Christians! They have just spent ^"12,000 in 
modifying this chapel, but they have not touched 
the old pulpit in which Wesley stood. It is ex- 
actly the same as when he left it. This church is 

* These letters were read at the Friday evening service ; and 
special prayer was offered at this service for the churches which 
sent the fraternal greetings. 



NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 37 

just the church to salute the saints the world over, 
and in this way testify to the unity of the Church 
Universal. Everything about this chapel speaks 
of the unity of the Church. There are ten beau- 
tiful marble pillars in it which hold up the gal- 
leries, and these are gifts from Christians living 
in ten different nations of the earth. Besides, the 
chapel stands right in the midst of the Church's 
great dead. Back of the pulpit sleeps John Wes- 
ley. On his right hand is the grave of Adam 
Clarke, the great commentator; on his left hand 
is Jabez Bunting, his famous successor. In the 
front of the chapel, on the other side of Bun Hill 
Road, are the graves of John Bunyan, Susannah 
Wesley, John Owen, Thomas Goodwin, and Isaac 
Watts; and a few feet beyond this, in another 
cemetery, rests George Fox, the founder of the 
Society of Friends. These all sleep in union 
around the Wesley Chapel. Right from the midst 
of this holy place, written on Wesley's table, comes 
this letter of greeting to those who are here this 
morning : 

From the Wesley Chapel, London. 

The church of John Wesley in England salutes the 
church of John Knox in America, as perpetuated by 
the Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church of Brook- 
lyn. Brethren in Christ, it was the genius of our 
great leader Wesley to give the right hand of fellow- 
ship to all who love the Lord Jesus. Inheriting His 
spirit, we also recognize and love all whom the Mas- 



$S NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

ter recognizes and loves. We ask your sympathies 
and prayers, and give you ours. 

" Wherefore after we heard of your faith in the Lord 
Jesus, and love unto all the saints, we ceased not to 
give thanks, making mention of you in our prayers, 
that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of 
glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and 
revelation in the knowledge of Him; that ye may 
know wiiat is the hope of His calling, and what the 
riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints; 
and what is the exceeding greatness of His power to 
usward who believe, which He wrought in Christ, 
whom He has given to be the Head over all things to 
the Church, which is His Bodv, the fulness of Him 
who filleth all in all." 



Such are the salutations which I bring to this 
beloved church of ours. What is the meaning of 
these salutations ? What are their inculcations ? 
As I look at them, they come to us with the in- 
spiration and the power which belong to watching 
eyes. They set before us large responsibilities. 
They magnify the duty of loyalty. They make us 
think of the oath which we took at the cross. 
They exalt the Church of Jesus Christ as God's 
regenerating power in the world. They are voices 
from across the sea. As talking voices, let me 
set before you in numerical order the things which 
they say to us as a congregation. They put these 
things before us : 

I. We are known abroad. It is a pleasant thing 
to be favorably known. 

II. In the Christian churches abroad there are 



NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 39 

great expectations in the religious air relative to 
us. Expectations are inspirations. They are tonic. 
They are an added force. 

III. There is an imperative duty laid upon us 
to verify the knowledge of us that is abroad, and 
to realize the expectations entertained for us. 
This is the point to expand as a fitting conclusion 
of this Salutation Service. Who has laid this 
duty upon us ? The churches abroad have. Who 
has laid this duty upon us ? Christ, who walks 
in the midst of the golden candlesticks has, and 
He is the great Head of the Church. 

Can we meet this duty? We can. How? I 
will tell you. (i) We must look after the power- 
room of the Church. (2) We must look after the 
unit of the Church. 

What is the power-room of the Church ? It is 
the prayer-room where we meet, each Monday 
night and each Friday night, to withdraw our- 
selves from the world, to lay hold on the prom- 
ises, to dedicate ourselves afresh to God, and to 
receive afresh the spirit of Pentecost which carries 
the enduement of power. I believe that our great 
need as Christians is more separation from the 
world, more going apart to God to get His infill- 
ing. We need more prayer, more of the quiet 
room. The power-room of the factory is the quiet 
room of the factory. But out from this quiet room 
go the many lines of forces which turn the noisy 
wheels and raise the crashing trip-hammers, which 



40 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

do the practical work and give results. Out of the 
prayer-room of the Church comes our power. Who 
are the spiritual men and women among us ? I do 
not mean the men and women who represent the 
Church in the circles of fashion, in the gayeties of 
the social life of the city, but the men and women 
who represent our Church by leading in helpful 
prayer in the public conferences of the churches, 
in the mission causes, in the large gifts to charity, 
and in public Christian work? They are the 
prayer-meeting men and women. I cannot ex- 
plain how prayer works in securing the blessing, 
but I can assert that it does secure the blessing. 
I can assert that no great man of the Book and no 
great Church of the Book ever existed without 
prayer. Moses was a man of power, but Moses 
was a man of prayer. Elijah was a man of power, 
but Elijah was a man of prayer. Jesus was a man 
of power, but Jesus always took good care of the 
power-room. He spent w r hole nights in prayer. 
The Church of Jerusalem was a Church of power ; 
it gave the Gospel to the world ; but the Church 
of Jerusalem was a Church given to prayer. That 
Church once spent ten consecutive days in one 
prayer-service, and what was the result ? It re- 
ceived the Pentecostal baptism. I want the 
Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church, here 
and now, in this solemn presence, to resolve 
that from this time on it will be the Church 
of Jerusalem over again. O God ! Thou know- 



NEW EPISTLES EROM OLD LANDS. 41 

est the power of Jerusalem's upper-room; make 
this Church, we pray Thee, a Jerusalem upper- 
room. 

They told me in London, three weeks ago, that 
on the first day of the great Indian mutiny an 
English officer, alone in his barracks — for his men 
had deserted the flag — ordered his bugler to try 
the effect once more of a call to arms. So out on 
the still evening air the bugler sent floating his 
trumpet note, " Come to the colors ! " Of all who 
heard the old familiar note of authority, only one 
man fell into the usual line and saluted the flag. 
Christ, the Captain of salvation, has brought me 
back from afar to this great camp of the army of 
God, and on this first Sabbath of my return he has 
commanded me to sound the Gospel trumpet of rally 
around the cross. I send that call out into the 
hallowed atmosphere of this Sabbath Day. You 
hear it. Who will respond ? Who will respond ? 
That is the question of the hour, and multitudes 
are waiting to hear the answer. The churches 
across the sea are waiting to hear. Who ? The 
grand men and women who have gone up to God 
out of our midst are waiting to hear. Who ? The 
Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Pentecost is waiting to 
hear. Who ? Shall there be only one to answer 
the bugle call ? God forbid. Let us all answer 
the call ! Let every unit in this great Church 
respond. "Therefore, brethren, seeing we are 
encompassed about with so great a cloud of wit- 



42 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

nesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the 
sin that doth so easily beset us; and let us 
run with patience the race that is set before 
us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher 
of our faith." 






WHAT GOD IS TO HIS PEOPLE 

AND 

WHAT HE IS NOT. 




"CY 



. 



-J 



II. 

What God Is to His People and What He 
Is Not. 

" Have I been a wilderness unto Israel ? " — Jer. ii. 31. 
" The glorious Lord will be unto us a place of broad rivers." 
— ISA. xxxiii. 21. 

This sermon has a history. It is a product of 
Palestine. It grew in the land where its text 
grew. I found it in the wilderness of Judea, not 
far from the city of Jerusalem. Prior to my visit 
to the Holy Land I had never been in a wilderness. 
But on the morning of a bright May-day I started 
from Jerusalem for a trip through the wilderness 
thirty miles down to the Jordan valley and the 
banks of the Dead Sea. I was on my way to Jer- 
icho. In this trip I reached the very heart of the 
wilderness of Judea. It formed a great contrast 
to what I had seen a few days before, when I rode 
over the plain of Sharon, which was all abloom 
with flowers and richly freighted with waving har- 
vests. The centre of the wilderness of Judea is 
wildness itself. It is pure, unrelieved desolation ; 
it is pastureless ; it is lifeless ; it is utterly unremu- 
nerative ; it is devoid of every trace or suggestion 
of the human. There is not even a black tent of 



4§ NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

a swarthy Bedouin there. There are hills there, 
but they are bald, and smooth, and white, and 
without a tint of verdure. There are great gorges 
there, black and yawning, rock-ribbed and stony. 
There are steep precipices there, which make the 
tourist shudder as he rides along their slippery 
edges. There is flying dust there, and, driven by 
the wind, it sweeps the place in blinding and 
stifling clouds. There is great heat there, and 
most of the year the wilderness is like a burning 
oven. A man out there amid those stony hills is 
as isolated as a man out in the midst of the great 
waves of mid-ocean with not a sail in sight. It is 
the land of silence. The perpetual stillness there 
is overwhelming and oppressive. The sterile sol- 
itudes are so deep and so lonely that they set one 
talking to his own soul for the sake of company 
and relief. This is the one place of all the earth 
for God to talk to a man, and to talk effectively. 
There is positively nothing to interrupt; nothing 
to break the attention of man. This is God's 
auditorium, roofed by a wonderful sky, and grand 
with the grandeur of vastness. It was out here 
that Elijah lived and received his messages from 
God, messages which were straightforward and 
without ornament, craggy and granite in their sub- 
stance and form. It was out here that John the 
Baptist separated himself to God, and here he be- 
gan to preach the coming of the kingdom. It was 
out here that Jesus Christ was tempted. On one 



JVHA T GOD IS TO HIS PEOPLE. 49 

side of this wilderness Amos was born, and on 
another and. different side of it Jeremiah was 
born, and the visions of both of these prophets 
have the ruggedness of this wilderness in them. 
They both make the wilderness of Judea talk to 
Israel concerning God, and concerning God's deal- 
ings with His covenant people. It was out here, 
while I was in the very heart of barrenness and 
chaos and emptiness, that the text of this morning 
came to me. " Have I ever been a wilderness to 
thee? " The question came with such force that 
it seemed as though I heard an audible voice and 
as though God Himself spake down from the skies. 
For a time I rode on in the stillness of the wilder- 
ness without saying a single word. I let God talk. 
I allowed Him to amplify His question. " Have 
I been a barren God to you ? Have you planted 
your faith in Me, and reaped nothing ? Have you 
cultivated your love toward Me and received no 
love in return? Has your fellowship with Me 
yielded you nothing more than these broken, chas- 
mic rocks have yielded the shepherds and the hus- 
bandmen of Judea? As your God, am I to you as 
the things which you see around you — blinding 
dust, oppressive heat which weakens and makes 
faint, yawning chasm which affrights and terrifies, 
perpetual emptiness which disappoints, a mighty 
field of unfruitful rocks bald and barren, unable 
to give man the bread of life, able only to hold his 
bones while they bleach in the sun, and crumble 
4 



5© NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

to atoms, and blow away ? Am I only a wilder- 
ness to you ? You know now what a wilderness 
is. Answer My question here in the heart of this 
Judean desert. Answer it to your own soul, 
answer it to the world, answer it to Me." 

How did I deal with God's question ? How did 
I frame my answer ? What did I say to God in 
response? I will tell you. I threw God's ques- 
tion up over the barren hills, to the crested edge 
of the wilderness, to a little oasis there, where I 
saw a shepherd feeding his flock in the morning 
as I started out on my wilderness trip ; and an an- 
swer to God's question came back from that pic- 
turesque scene in the form of the Twenty-third 
Psalm : 

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. 

Turning that psalm into the song of my soul, 
I sent it to God as my answer. I threw God's 
question over to the summit of Mount Moriah, and 
out from the old Temple of God came floating in 
the air the words of the Thirty-sixth Psalm : 

Thy loving kindness, O Lord, is in the heavens. 
Thy faithfulness reacheth unto the skies. 
Thy righteousness is like the great mountains. 
Thy judgments are a great deep. 
O Lord, thou preservest man and beast. 
How precious is thy loving kindness, O God! 
Therefore the children of men put their trust under 
the shadow of thy wings. 



WHAT GOD IS TO HIS PEOPLE. 51 

They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness 
of thy house. 

And thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy 
pleasures. 

For with thee is the fountain of life. 

In thy light shall we see light. 

I turned these words also into the song of my 
soul that day, and sent the Thirty-sixth Psalm to 
God as my answer. 

Mount Nebo was in sight from the spot where I 
was, so I threw God's question up there to Moses, 
and back from him came these words of the 
Ninetieth Psalm : 

Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all gen- 
erations. 

I threw 7 God's question over to Mount Zion to 
the palace of David, the King of Israel, and from 
his harp of praise came back the One Hundred and 
Third Psalm, and I made that the song of my soul 
and sent the One Hundred and Third Psalm to 
God as my answer. Why should I not use these 
inspired osalms as my answer ? I was in the psalm 
country, wnere God's goodness grew these psalms, 
and they answered the fitness of things. I threw 
God's question over to Bethlehem, and to Calvary, 
and to the empty tomb, and to the Mount of Ol- 
ives, and back came the Gospels, and the eighth 
chapter of Romans, and the fifteenth chapter of 
First Corinthians, and, by an act of appropriating 



52 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

faith, I made these mine once more and sent them 
to God as my answer. I was in the midst of these 
historic and sacred places, I had seen them all that 
very day, and why should I not interrogate them 
for the answer which I knew they held ? Sum- 
ming up my answer into one short sentence, with 
Israel of old, I said : " Lord, thou hast been as a 
River of Life unto me." A river of life is the 
very opposite of a wilderness. Israel of old said : 
"The glorious Lord will be unto us a place of 
broad rivers." 

We see now what God is not. He is not a wil- 
derness to His people. The other question before 
us is, "What is He?" Our text answers: "He 
is a River to His people." 

Did I see illustrations of the value of the life- 
giving river while in yonder world of antiquity ? 
I did. And what is remarkable, ofttimes I saw the 
fertile river- valley and the bleak and blasted wil- 
derness-region coexisting side by side. The strik- 
ing contrast emphasized to me the word " wilder- 
ness" and the word "river." I saw the Nile and 
the fertile valley which it has made. Egypt is the 
creature of the Nile. Geographically Egypt is a 
broad tract of country, but so far as civilization is 
concerned the real Egypt is the comparatively nar- 
row strip of the valley of the Nile, broadening out 
below Cairo into the Delta. On each side of the 
rich valley there is an arid region of rocky and 
sandy hills, on which scarcely a trace of vegetation 



WHAT GOD IS TO HIS P EOF IE. 53 

can be seen. The fertile valley is marked off from 
the desert as cleanly as if the dividing line had 
been cut by a knife. That desert is a mighty sea 
of yellow sand which the wind has tossed every- 
where into wave shapes. It is crinkled and bil- 
lowed, just like the ocean. It is out there that 
the bland Sphinx rears its mighty head, and the 
gigantic pyramids keep perpetual watch. Take 
away the Nile, and Egypt in a very short time 
would lapse into the great African desert. These 
sands, which are forever dashing up against the 
Sphinx and the pyramids, would roll over this Eden 
valley and make it one sea of sand. 

What is seen in Egypt is seen in Syria, viz. : 
fertility and desert side by side. The rich plain 
of Damascus is surrounded by great sand hills as 
bleak and as verdureless as the human eye ever 
rested upon. The contrast sets off the beauty of 
the city of Damascus. It is a city of gardens, and 
itself stands in the midst of a vast garden. It is 
the great White City of the Orient; and its mina- 
rets and dome-shaped buildings, all white, give it 
the appearance of an island of pearls and opals 
gleaming out of a sea of emerald. You know the 
characteristics of this noted city. It is noted 
for its great antiquity and astonishing vitality. 
It is the oldest city of the world. It antedates 
Abraham. Eliezer, Abraham's servant, was from 
Damascus. 

It has had vitality to live through millenniums. 



54 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

Babylon is a ruin, Nineveh is a ruin, but Damas- 
cus still stands and shows no sign of decay. Rome 
is called the Eternal City, but Damascus is twice 
the age of Rome. Its history goes back to the 
world's beginning and bids fair to go on to the 
world's end. It is noted for its great beauty. It 
is called the Paradise of the East. It got this 
name from the story of Mohammed. It is related 
of him that, when he was a poor muleteer, he came 
on one of his journeys to the neighborhood of 
Damascus. When he caught sight of the city, 
lying in the midst of its bowers, he gazed on its 
beauty and turned away without entering it, ex- 
claiming : " Man can have but one Paradise, and 
my Paradise is fixed above." The prophet Jere- 
miah, in the name of a citizen of Damascus, calls 
it "the city of praises, the city of my joy." But 
why speak thus in praise of Damascus ? That I 
may make this point : Its beauty, its vitality, its 
antiquity, its wealth are all due to one cause, viz., 
the river Abana. " Are not Abana and Pharpar, 
rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of 
Israel ? " The Abana is the very life-blood of 
great Damascus and of the whole surrounding fer- 
tile plain. But for it the whole plain would match 
the bleak hills that loom around it. It is literally 
a river of life. 

Naaman, the Syrian, was right when, physically, 
he pooh-poohed at the river Jordan in comparison 
with this river which made Damascus. There 



WHAT GOD IS TO HIS PEOPLE. 55 

was no such river in all Israel. The Jordan was 
no such river. I traced the Jordan, from the spot 
where it ingloriously empties itself into the Dead 
Sea, up to its source in Dan, where it gushes al- 
most full size from the base of Mount Hermon, 
but I found it as nothing in comparison with the 
Abana. It did not make Galilee, it did not make 
Judea. It never created any civilization. It never 
turned a mill-wheel. No great city was ever built 
on its banks. The valley through which it flows, 
owing to its tropical heat, is malarious and drives 
the population to the adjacent highlands. It has 
never been anything for navigation. No fishing 
industry has ever been carried on in its waters. 
It has helped agriculture only in a limited way, 
and that in Galilee. The Judean half of it might 
disappear without producing any serious loss to 
the civilization of Palestine. The civilization of 
Palestine is found, not in its valley, but up on the 
centre tableland, hundreds of feet higher than 
the Jordan valley. The Jordan got its famous 
history, not from its physical value, but from its 
relation to the God of Israel. It was a sacra- 
mental river. It was as such that it made its 
record. God made its waters life-giving to Naa- 
man of Damascus. The touch of the sacred feet 
of the priests and the mantle of Elijah gave it its 
fame. John and Jesus made it holy water by con- 
verting it into God's Baptistry . Jesus Christ was 
baptized in it. It was the silver cord upon which 



56 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

God strung as golden beads the thrilling events 
in the history of His covenant people. 

Jerusalem knew just what the Jordan was; that 
it meant nothing to a great city ; that it meant 
nothing to the surrounding country of a great city; 
that it produced nothing in civilization. Jerusa- 
lem said to God, " I have no Nile to make me as 
Egypt. I have no Euphrates to make me as Baby- 
lon. I have no Abana to make me as Damascus. 
I have only this little Jordan; and it is nothing." 
God replied to Jerusalem : " I know it. You have 
no Nile; no Euphrates; no Abana. I am your 
Nile; I am your Euphrates; I am your Abana. 
I will be a River unto thee. I will make thee 
great without the Nile; without the Euphrates; 
without the Abana. Have I ever been a wilder- 
ness unto Israel ? " 

What God promised to be, that He was to Jeru- 
salem; its River; the Source of its life. What if 
Damascus have the Abana ; is not God better than 
the Abana? Can Damascus, the Abana-made 
city, compare with Jerusalem, the God-made city ? 
Notwithstanding the great age of Damascus, not- 
withstanding its large population in all times, we 
cannot associate a single great action with Damas- 
cus, or a single great action with any one born 
in Damascus. I mean an action that has blessed 
the wide world. The associations of Damascus 
are all of idolatry, cruelty, and bloodshed. You 
cannot say that of Jerusalem. Jerusalem, with 



WHAT GOD IS TO HIS PEOPLE. $7 

God in place of a river, has a better record than 
that. 

In Judea there were none of the natural condi- 
tions of a great city; but God built Jerusalem 
there, and made it a great city. God made it the 
leading city of the world ; for, far above and be- 
yond Athens, and far above and beyond Rome, it 
taught the nations truth and justice, and gave to 
mankind that which purifies and makes society 
strong and blessed. It became so grand, and 
beautiful, and estimable that it gave its name to 
that ideal city which men have all along been 
trying to build on this earth, viz., the New Jeru- 
salem, the City of God descending out of Heaven. 
Jerusalem was not impregnable, but, what was far 
better, it was in charge of an invincible Provi- 
dence. So long as its people were loyal to God, 
it stood invincible. 

My fellow-men, you know the history of Israel, 
and the relations of God A to that history. Answer : 
Was not God everything to that nation? You 
know how God talked with that nation, in the per- 
son of Moses, on the threshold of its career. The 
words of Moses are familiar to you : 

If thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of 
the Lord thy God, to observe and to do all his com- 
mandments, thy God will set thee high above all na- 
tions of the earth, and all these blessings shall come 
on thee. Blessed shalt thou be in the city, and 
blessed shalt thou be in the field. Blessed shall be 
the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy ground, and 



5$ NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

the fruit of thy cattle, the increase of thy kine, and the 
flocks of thy sheep. Blessed shall be thy basket, and 
thy store. Blessed shalt thou be when thou comest 
in, and blessed shalt thou be when thou goest out. 

The Lord shall cause thine enemies that rise up 
against thee to be smitten before thy face: they shall 
come up against thee one way. and flee before thee 
seven ways. The Lord shall bless thee in all that 
thou settest thine hand unto. The Lord shall estab- 
lish thee an holy people unto Himself. All people 
of the earth shall see that thou art called by the name 
of the Lord, and they shall be afraid of thee. 

The Lord shall open unto thee his good treasure, 
the heaven to give rain unto thy land in its season, 
and to bless all the work of thine hand, and thou 
shalt lend unto many nations, and shalt not borrow! 

You know how these words were fulfilled. You 
know what God was to Israel when Israel trusted 
God. God was the equivalent of harvests — infi- 
nite harvests. God meant the early and the latter 
rain. God meant the cedars of Lebanon, the 
clothing of the mountains of Palestine; and the 
Rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valley, the 
clothing of the lowlands and plains of Palestine. 
God meant progress, growth, victory. God was 
the equivalent of an all-around greatness. As 
Moses said, Israel became so great under God that 
she gave to the world; never borrowed, never 
received from the world. The world had nothing 
to do in her making, but she had everything to 
do in the making of the world. L'nder God, 
she gave the world principles, precedents, theolo- 
gies, moral sciences, holy men, and magnificent 



WHAT GOD IS TO HIS PEOPLE. 59 

leaders. " Thou shalt lend unto the nations, and 
not borrow ! " She has given the world more than 
Egypt, the cradle of learning, has given; more 
than Babylon, the centre of ancient wealth ; more 
than Tyre or Sidon, the creator of silks and col- 
ors ; more than robust Germany ; more than bril- 
liant France ; more than sunny and tuneful Italy, 
the land of artists and architects; more than 
Christian England, with its statesmen and schol- 
ars; and more than great America, the land of 
civil and religious liberty. The golden crops of 
ideas, and principles, and moralities, and spiritu- 
alities, and religion, reaped from the harvest-fields 
of Judea, Samaria, and Galilee, have nowhere as 
yet been equalled in all' the world. "Thou shalt 
lend unto the nations, and shalt not borrow ! " 

This is the story of God in His relation to 
Israel, His covenant people, viz. : He made Judea 
the land of righteousness, and truth, and peace, 
and goodness, and uprightness, and salvation. 
Certainly this is not the harvest of a wilderness. 
He made Jerusalem a city of magnificent fellow- 
ships, with holy and infinite ideas ; holy and infi- 
nite purposes ; holy and infinite loves ; holy and 
infinite relationships; holy and infinite memories. 
It was the city of sublime faith in the one living 
and true God. It was nothing short of a soul rap- 
ture. Certainly this is not the harvest of a wil- 
derness. Look at the products of this land. It 
grew Abraham and the patriarchs ; Moses and the 



60 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

prophets ; David and the psalmists ; John and the 
evangelists; Peter and the Apostles ; Jesus Christ 
and great Christendom; the Bible, the Book of 
God, and Christianity. Certainly, this is not the 
harvest of a wilderness. These grand things can 
grow only upon the banks of the River of Life. 

We talk about the blessings which the Jew has 
given the world, and we explain his fruitfulness 
by saying that his was the aristocracy of brain, and 
his the aristocracy of blood. This is not the ex- 
planation. The true explanation is this : The 
Jew has given to the nations of the world, and not 
borrowed, because he has been the covenant-child 
of God. God in the Jew made him a blessing ; 
God in his brain made him an Isaiah, with the roll 
of prophecy in his hand ; and a John, with the 
Apocalypse in his hand. God was in his brain ; 
the indwelling God always expands the mind. 
God was in his blood ; God was in his civilization ; 
God was in his sacred writings ; God was in his 
Messiah. God explains the Jew, and only God. 
God, not as a wilderness, but God as a River of 
Life. Because God was what He was to his cove- 
nant people, therefore He could challenge them 
with the question of the text, " Have I been a 
wilderness unto Isarel ? " 

My fellow-men, God is dealing with us this 
morning just as of old He dealt with His ancient 
covenant-people. He is here with His old ques- 
tion, and He puts it directly to us : " Have I ever 



WHAT GOD IS TO HIS PEOPLE. 6* 

been a wilderness unto thee ? Have I been re- 
gardless of your need of salvation ? Have I over- 
looked the fact that you are ignorant and need in- 
struction ? Have I been deaf to your entreaty ? 
Have I been without sympathy in your time of 
affliction ? Have I but half opened the door when 
you sought to return to My love and confidence ? 
Have I starved you ? Have I led you amid stony 
places? Have I been inhospitable to you when 
you looked up to Me for the Bread of Life, and for 
nourishment ? " What a power a simple question 
is when used by the Lord. It is a witness against 
the soul ; it is an impeachment ; a challenge ; an 
accusation ; an argument ; a criticism. When God 
asks a question He pronounces a judgment. His 
question searches us through and through. His 
question carries its own answer. It is judicial, 
and leaves us without defence before God. 

But why does God come this morning and ask 
us the question of the text ? I suppose the rea- 
son is : We have minimized our God ; we have 
underestimated Him ; we have misrepresented 
Him to ourselves; we have neglected Him; we 
have failed to apply to Him, and to make large 
appropriations of Him. He questions us because 
of our low thoughts of Him ; our murmurings ; 
our dissatisfactions ; our lean and hungry looks ; 
our low attainments ; our forgetfulness ; our shift- 
ing policies; and our worldly alliances. He sees 
that we are positively weary of Him, and that we 



62 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

are limiting Him, and keeping Him from working 
out His grand ideals in and through us. 

Brethren, God is not a wilderness to us. We 
have been false and barren to ourselves ; but God 
to us, never. Whenever we have let God into our 
lives, and His blessed Son, and His sacred Book, 
and His holy day, and His Eternal Spirit, we 
have had all things, and have abounded. 

That you may be helped to give a right answer 
to God's question, let me mention at least three 
things relative to God in which there is not an 
atom of the wilderness. 

I. His precepts, whereby He instructs us, are not 
a wilderness. 

It is, as the Psalmist says concerning His com- 
mandments, " Each thought of thine, a deep it 
is ! " We need His precepts as a guide, and in 
no day more than in this day. There are others 
speaking to us from other books than the Bible. 
They are intellectual men, able men. They are 
persons capable of treating great subjects in a 
great manner. They have long ago discounted 
Moses, and the prophets, and the psalmists, and 
the apostles. They have taken their own con- 
sciousness as a guide. They exalt what they call 
their spiritual instinct. They make that infal- 
lible, in place of God's Word. The result is, they 
are leading man away from God. Let me ask you, 
Is man's instinct equal to God's omniscience? If 
not, then the time has not yet come to give up 



WHAT GOD IS TO HIS PEOPIE. 63 

God as our guide, especially in the things which 
pertain to eternity. It is said that in Norway, every 
three or four years, swarms of little animals, called 
the lemming, find their way to the coast, and swim 
out to sea where they perish in great numbers. 
A false trust in instinct, or, rather, in an experi- 
ence too narrow, seems to be the clew to this phe- 
nomenon of collective suicide. Instinct is all 
right within narrow lines. It is all right in swim- 
ming little Norway rivers and lakes ; but it is all 
too inadequate when the lemmings reach the vast 
ocean, with its unknown areas. Let no one here 
be the victim of the overweening confidence of 
man. Wait until God fails you ; wait until He 
proves a wilderness, before you put in His place 
any man, however gifted, as a leader in things 
which pertain to the eternities. Israel may count 
upon it that God will lead her safely to Canaan. 

2. His promises, whereby He heartens and in- 
spires us, are not a wilderness. 

I need not stop to utter a single word of argu- 
ment in confirmation of this fact. The statement 
is almost axiomatic. And yet, notwithstanding, 
we, many of us, are like wilderness people. Spir- 
itually we are gaunt and lean, and half- starved. 
We are rich in promises, only we do not know it. 
In the Kingdom of God we are like the historic 
Indian in the republic of America. This Indian 
found his way into one of our Western settle- 
ments. He was in search of food, for he was 



64 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

starving. A bright-colored ribbon was seen around 
his neck, from which there hung a small pouch. 
He was asked what this was, and he replied that 
it was a charm given him in his younger days. 
He opened it and took out a worn and crumpled 
piece of paper and handed it to the settlers for in- 
spection. On examination, this crumpled piece of 
paper was found to be a regular discharge from the 
Federal army entitling him to a pension for life. 
It was signed by General Washington himself. 
Here was a man with a duly signed promise secur- 
ing him ample provision for every emergency, and 
yet he was wandering about hungry and helpless 
and forlorn, begging bread to keep him from star- 
vation. That is a picture of many Christians. 
They are poverty-stricken while holding in their 
hands divine claims upon the very wealth of 
Heaven. Take the promises to God and have 
them realized. Get them cashed in courage, in 
peace of conscience, in assurance, and in divine 
communion. Our need is receptivity — power to 
receive God. 

3. His Christ, by whom we are saved> is not a 
wilderness. 

He is the supremacy of God's revelation. As 
the Revealer of God, He has a name that is above 
every name. He shows us that the genius of God 
is infinite love, infinite plentifulness. In Jesus 
Christ, God gives to mankind universally. Christ 
was not local, He was universal. True, He walked 



WHAT GOD IS TO HIS PEOPLE. 65 

in Galilee and talked with the fishermen of that 
place ; but He talked to the universal soul. True, 
He sat on the hillside over across from Caper- 
naum, and, in a low, sweet voice, uttered those 
wonderful Beatitudes of His; but at the same 
time He preached that immortal Sermon on the 
Mount to all future generations of men. True, 
He partook of a simple meal in an upper chamber 
of Jerusalem, with nobody present save His twelve 
disciples; but it is just as true that around that 
board, in the vision of faith, there were ranged the 
weary, and the penitent, and the bereaved of all 
nations and of all centuries. We know what we 
have in Him — pardon of sin, freedom from all 
condemnation, peace of conscience, ideals toward 
which to grow, freedom from the fear of death, 
and the purifying and uplifting hope of a blessed 
immortality. These are not the harvest of a wil- 
derness. Strike Jesus Christ and His few months 
of ministry in Palestine out of existence, and all 
the elements and facts which vivify society and 
ennoble our life disappear as the rays of light dis- 
appear when the sun is quenched. Our chiefest 
blessings radiate from His divine personality. 
Christ is God at His best — God in His fulness. 
In reaching God through Moses the lawgiver, 
through David the sweet singer, through Isaiah 
the evangelical prophet, and then through Jesus 
Chirst the divine Son, we are like the traveller in 
the Alpine land making new and advancing dis- 
5 



66 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

coveries of the beauties of the Alps. When he 
reaches the first brave altitude, and gets his first 
thrill from the vision about him, he says : " This is 
the place for me to live; I'll nestle my cottage on 
yonder slope, and live with this prospect forever 
before me." He pushes on, however. When he 
reaches a few miles farther up he says : " No ; I 
was mistaken, this is the place for me; I will 
build my home here ; the air is purer and more 
exhilarating. The altitude is bolder, and the 
landscape is wider and finer in every feature." He 
is exceedingly talkative. " This is the place for 
my home." But still he pushes up and on until 
he reaches the very heart of the Alps. There is 
a wonderful glow in his countenance, as though 
he were standing face to face with God. But why 
is he dumb and silent ? He has just reached the 
Jungfrau. Its figure is majestic; its purity is un- 
speakable. It has burst upon him in a glory he 
never dreamed of. He is enthralled; he is over- 
awed. He is silent. He cannot analyze it; he 
cannot put its beauty into words. There is no for- 
mula for the Jungfrau. This is the fulness of the 
glory of the Alps. This is the place above all 
places for his home. My fellow-man, if you have 
not reached Jesus Christ in your knowledge, and 
in your faith, and in your love, you have not yet 
reached the Jungfrau in the Alps of truth. He 
is the fulness of God. But if you have reached 
Him in your knowledge, and in your faith, and in 



WHAT GOD IS TO HIS PEOPLE. 67 

your love, you have found the true place for the 
home of your soul. Blessed is that man whose 
life is hid with Christ in God. Are you such an 
one ? Then " my God shall supply all your need 
according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus." 

In the study of this morning we have found 
what God is to His people and what He is not. 
The practical lesson contained in what we have 
found is this : 

We should be like God. We should be to 
others what God is to us. Christ says, " that all 
to whom he gives the water of life, out of them 
shall flow rivers of living water." That is, they 
shall be rivers of life unto others. 

A wilderness, or a river ? that is the question. 
Which are we? What are we as part of the 
Church of Christ ? What are we in the item of 
prayer ? What are we as an inspiration to others ? 
What is our faith? What is our love? Are we 
fruitful or unfruitful? Do we enrich the home, 
society, the body politic ? What do we give forth 
from our Christian personality ? Sympathy, love, 
experience ? What are we doing with the things 
of God? What are we making out of His gifts 
for the blessing of others ? God gives us Chris- 
tianity with its precepts and principles : what are 
we doing with it ? Are we turning it into the 
practical and needed things of life — forgiveness, 
charity, honesty, truthfulness, helping hands? 
Are we concreting Christianity? Taking it out 



68 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

of a creed and putting it into a life ? This is the 
best way to help others. This is what God ex- 
pects us to do. God always leaves a margin for 
men to work in and show their quality. He cre- 
ates stone, but He leaves it for man to build the 
house. He grows the wool, but man must run the 
loom and make the cloth. , He gives the corn, but 
man must grind it and bake it, if he would have 
bread. Christianity comes to us as a germ, as un- 
hewn stone, as uncarded wool, as unthreshed wheat ; 
what are we doing with it to make it of practical 
service ? Christianity is the simple gamut. What 
is the song into which we are converting it? Are 
we singing the song of salvation into the souls of 
others ? God is giving us wide margins in life 
in which to work and to become blessings to oth- 
ers. Are we working Christianity out in a splen- 
did, fruitful life? There is such a thing as a 
noble discontent. I wish to see such a discon- 
tent in you. Yet I do not wish to discourage you 
while calling you to high and Godlike things. I 
hear you say : " We cannot maintain the level of 
the life you are prescribing." True you cannot; 
but God in you can. Your sufficiency is in Him. 
Robert Louis Stevenson — the man of whom 
Margaret Ogilvy was so jealous, because she was 
afraid that he was out-distancing her son — was 
working on the very night of his death on his new 
and great work. He felt that he was outdoing 
himself, and an anxiety, such as yours, came into 



WHAT GOD IS TO HIS PEOPLE. 69 

his heart which led him to ask this question: 
" How shall I keep up the pitch ? " Do not trou- 
ble yourselves about keeping up the pitch. It is 
not necessary nor possible to keep up the pitch 
in Stevenson's sense. Men are not always equal. 
Shakespeare wrote baskets of rubbish; Words- 
worth, pages of platitudes; Homer nodded many 
a time; Paul rabbinized. The human life of 
Christ was not one level. He had His moods. 
Gethsemane was one mood ; His rejoicing at the 
report of the Seventy who came back saying, 
" Lord, even the devils are subject to us in thy 
name," was an altogether different mood. Cal- 
vary was a whole series of alternating moods. 
Your duty is to do the best you can to-day and 
trust to-morrow with God. The best at the time 
— that is all either God or man can ask of you. 
" How can I keep up the pitch? " Stevenson was 
anxious over-much; for that very night God re- 
lieved him and crowned him with an everlasting 
crown. Be the best river of life to the world that 
it is possible for you to be ; but do not worry as 
to whether you shall dash in a cascade, or plunge 
in a cataract, or overflow the banks in an irrigat- 
ing flood ; God will see to that. Flow where God 
sends you ; flow as God gives you volume. Count 
upon this fact : the man who is always a river of 
life will never be a wilderness. God is a River 
of Life, but never a wilderness. We, His people, 
should be like Him. 



THE THINGS WE SHOULD LEAVE FOR 
CHRIST. 




A WOMAN OF SAMARIA WITH HER WATER-POT. 



III. 

The Things We Should Leave for Christ. 

" The woman left her water-pot. " — John iv. 28. 

I chose this text at the hour of noon, while 
resting on the very spot where Jesus rested, and 
where He talked with the Samaritan woman. I 
chose it at Jacob's Well, on the very stone where 
the woman left her water-pot. There may be dis- 
cussions as to other sites pertaining to Scripture 
incidents, but there is no discussion whatever as 
to the site of Jacob's well. This is the best 
identified spot in all Palestine. One visit by the 
Lord Jesus Christ made it forever famous, and 
impossible of being forgotten or mistaken. A 
plain, unpretentious stone corridor surrounding a 
vault-covered well, the mouth-stone of which has 
been grooved by the ropes of ages — such is Jacob's 
well. But it is more famous than the Parthenon 
and older than the Pyramids. The well has been 
purchased lately by the- Greek Church, and is kept 
by one of its monks, who to-day solicits subscrip- 
tions of all visitors for the laudable purpose of re- 
storing this spot to its ancient glory. 

Between the noontide of May nth and May 



76 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

1 2th I was highly favored as a traveller in the 
Holy Land. During those hours I was permitted 
to stand in three holy places, places which were 
holy because they were places where God had es- 
pecially revealed Himself to the sons and daugh- 
ters of men. During these hours I lunched at 
Bethel, I tented at Shiloh, and I partook of a 
noon-day meal at Jacob's well. At Bethel God 
dropped His spiritual ladder into Jacob's soul, and 
linked Heaven and earth together, and made the 
place to him " the house of God and the gate of 
heaven." At Shiloh God first "set up his name 
in Canaan and his tent in Israel. " It was in the 
holy tent of Shiloh that God spake to the boy 
Samuel and called him to greatness. And here, 
for nearly four hundred years, the glorious She- 
kinah shone above the mercy-seat between the 
cherubim in the Holy of holies. But the greatest 
revelation of God was at Jacob's well ; for to Ja- 
cob's well the Son of God Himself came. He 
was the true Shekinah, in whom dwelt all the ful- 
ness of the Godhead bodily. Here He held forth 
one noon -day, and by one grand talk revealed Him- 
self as the long-looked for Messiah. This was 
the Word made flesh and dwelling among men. 
Three such spots of revelation, seen in twenty- 
four hours — Bethel, Shiloh, Jacob's well, all holy 
places — that was enough to make any twenty-four 
hours a memorable day ! That outer May day was 
grand. The sun was shining in its strength, the 



THINGS WE SHOULD LEAVE FOR CHRIST. 77 

atmosphere was clear and crystalline, the flowers 
were in full bloom, the vale of Shechem was 
freighted with the waving grain at the beginning 
of barley harvest, the birds were warbling, the 
brooks were murmuring, the air was ringing with 
the voices of the children at play. The outer, the 
natural day was grand; but it was not half so 
grand as the inner, the spiritual day, which flooded 
the soul with the light of Heaven, and gave it ce- 
lestial harvests, and drew for it refreshing water 
from the River of Life which flows from beneath 
the throne of God. 

The first thing which I did on reaching Jacob's 
well was to drop a light eighty feet into the well 
and verify the words, "Sir, the well is deep. " 
Then I lowered a bucket and drew it up full of 
the historic water. Then I drank; and all the 
while I thought of Jesus Ghrist and His gift of 
the Water of Life. After a refreshing draught, 
I gave myself up to the reading of the fourth 
chapter of the Gospel according to John, and to 
re-living the scene of eighteen hundred years ago. 
It is wonderful what the influence of being there 
is, and of reading there the words of Jesus. It 
gives a new vividness to that great chapter, which 
is so full of life and spiritual movement, and 
which records, with such minuteness, the most 
marvellous conversation ever carried on by means 
of human speech. 

When I came to these words, " The woman left 



78 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

her water-pot, and went her way into the city, and 
said to the men, Come, see a man which told me 
all things that ever I did ; is not this the Christ ? " 
I said to myself, " That shall be my text when I 
stand again in the old pulpit and preach Jesus 
Christ to my people." 

So far as this woman is concerned, that is the 
climax of the story of Jacob's well. She so finds 
Christ, and .Christ so finds her, that everything at 
once becomes subordinate to Christ, and to the 
work of making Him known to a dying world. 

It is a very little item for the Bible to notice — 
that she forgot her water-pot and, for the time 
being, lost sight of her purpose in coming to the 
well ; but this little item reveals the whole char- 
acter of the woman, and the new state into which 
she has been lifted, and the new ambition which 
has been put into her life, to sway it forever. 
Little things are used to make great revelations. 
To tell us that Paul was soundly converted the 
Bible says, " Behold, he prayeth." To tell us that 
this woman is wholly absorbed by Christ, and is 
Christ-filled and Christ-swayed, the Bible tells us, 
"The woman left her water-pot." Little, unstud- 
ied acts reveal just what we are, and show what is 
supreme in our lives. The things which we un- 
consciously give up emphasize the things we have 
newly chosen. When we choose, with an all-ab- 
sorbing choice, the higher things, we instinctively 
give up the lower things ; and we give them up 



THINGS WE SHOULD LEAVE FOR CHRIST. 79 

without hardship, without thought, and as a matter 
of course. 

But let us get Jacob's well clearly before us, 
with its surrounding neighborhood ; for the neigh- 
borhood is as much in the Gospel narrative as is 
the well itself. The whole region round about 
Jacob's well is rich in Biblical association, and the 
whole region, you will notice, is woven into this 
conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan 
woman. I do not believe that there is another 
conversation, or passage, or discourse, in all the 
Gospel, in which there are so many local allusions, 
as are found in this conversation ; and the beauty 
of it all is this — these local allusions are not 
merely incidental, they are, every one of them, 
homiletical. The water is made a text ; so is the 
mountain; so is the field, and so is the town. 
They are all used to bring out religious lessons 
and convey soul-saving truths. Jesus makes every- 
thing vocal, and by a chorus of voices proclaims 
eternal life. It is this which makes Jacob's well 
a place of such great interest. Places become in- 
teresting to us because of what transpires at them. 
For example, the church to whose door Luther 
nailed his theses is interesting to us; so is the 
spot in Perth where John Knox preached the ser- 
mon which set in motion the Reformation of Scot- 
land ; so is the prison in which John Bunyan wrote 
the " Pilgrim's Progress." In like manner, Jacob's 
well is of interest to us because there Christ first 



So NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

proclaimed Himself the promised Messiah and 
offered eternal life to the children of men. 

Reaching Jacob's well by the route from Jeru- 
salem is no easy task. Judea is the hill country, 
and it is hard to travel. There are no made roads 
anywhere. There is at best only a rough track. 
Sometimes this track runs over the dry bed of a 
winter torrent, which is filled with boulders and 
cobble stones that roll under the horse's feet. 
The rough track is up one steep and down another 
steep ; and these steeps are bare rocks, smooth and 
slippery and full of crevices, which keep one in 
constant fear of sprained ankles. When it is 
written in the inspired narrative that after such 
a journey "Jesus was wearied," the whole country 
says, "That is true." The very roughness of the 
country testifies to the truthfulness of the Book. 
But when you get to Jacob's well, you are through 
with the rough country. You at once strike the 
vale of Shechem, which is an oasis in the wilder- 
ness, and is as beautiful and as full of fertility as 
any chosen track of land can be. Here you strike 
the singing birds and the music of running waters. 

Jacob's well is on the end of a low spur, or 
swell, running out from the northeastern base of 
Mount Gerizim. This spur is about thirty feet 
above the level of the plain, and commands quite a 
view of the scenery around. Jesus, from this 
slight altitude, could see everything which He 
wove into the conversation. There was the great 



THINGS WE SHOULD LEAVE FOR CHRIST. SI 

mountain of Gerizim before Him, three thousand 
feet in height, with the Samaritan temple upon its 
summit; the glory of Samaria. I rode to the top of 
that mountain, and tied my horse to the ruins of 
that very temple which filled the eye of the Master. 
It was here that I had one of the finest views of 
Palestine, and saw the greater part of the whole 
land at one sweep of the eye. Palestine is noted 
for one thing, and that is its mountain- top views; 
and every time one comes upon them they are an 
uplift and a surprise. If it were not for these, 
travel there would be tame ; but, with these, travel 
is a delight Almost every time one of these sub- 
lime views burst upon my vision I looked abroad 
and said: "A wonderful land; historic for won- 
derful men and wonderful thoughts and a wonder- 
ful life, and a wonderful God," 

From the summit of Mount Gerizim, I looked 
directly down upon the vale where Joshua once 
gathered the tribes of Israel to listen to the read- 
ing of the blessings and the curses. There were 
three millions of people there that day. One mil- 
lion and a half on the Ebal side and one million 
and a half on the Gerizim side. Was there ever 
an assembly on earth larger than that ? As, from 
the improvised pulpit in the center, each blessing 
was uttered and rang along the valley-auditorium 
and up over the mountain galleries, the Gerizim 
people shouted a cheerful "Amen." And as each 
curse was pronounced, in a similar way, the Ebal 



5: 



*OJf OLD LANDS. 



pet me sr.tutea. .mum 
cried me :: ar. ither. "ike 
in thunders :: rursmgs a 
I have said that the si 
on which I stood, had on 
the Temple, which fillet 



Thus the mountains 

5 :und :: mar.v waters, 



_: ...:__ _ ■_ 



n:t all passed away. There is a community of 
mem still in this place The ::mmnnity numbers 
t:-day one hundred and twenty They wirsmp in 
a syrvamvue in Xablus. :r Sheahem, a t:wn a little 
ever a mile fr:m Jacob's well. This synagugme I 
visited in :rder to see the eld Samaritan Penta- 
teuch, sola ::> have been written by Abishua. the 
sin i: rninehas. the sin if E leaner, the sen of 
Aaron.. Every year the Samaritans celebrate the 
Passover on Mount Gerizim, and slay their lambs 
and sprinkle the people with the blood thereof. 

But I must not allow myself to get too far away 
from Jacob's well. It is still full enough and deep 
enough to supply us with sufficient streams of 
thought for one service. Think of this old well, 
and think of its long work of mercy ! Through 
hundreds arc through thinsands if years at its 
brink have stood old men, little children, weary 
pilgrims, fair maidens, grim warriors, stately 
sheiks, dust}- travellers — all sorts and conditions 
of the East arm of the West It gave forth its 
water to the good and to the bad. I have some- 



THINGS WE SHOULD LEAVE FOR CHRIST. 8 



times thought that it gave to the prophet of God 
his suggestive figure of God's blessing, viz., " the 
wells of salvation," which is often used in the 
Book. I have sometimes thought, also, that it 
suggested that grand invitation of the Apocalypse, 
which has in it the music of cool, sparkling, and 
satisfying water— I mean these grand words : 
" And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And 
let him that heareth say, Come. And let him 
that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let 
him take the water of life freely." 

My fellow-men, the very presence of Jesus 
Christ at this well, in the heart of Samaria, in 
view of the hatred that existed between the Jews 
and the Samaritans, is a revelation in itself, a mag- 
nificent revelation of Jesus Christ. It shows the 
breadth of Christ and the intensity of His love, 
and the wideness of His nature, and the all-com- 
prehensiveness of His sympathy, and His great 
desire to save. Viewed rightly, it is an act incar- 
nating those grand words of hope, " God so loved 
the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that 
whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but 
have everlasting life." I say to you who are here 
this evening, and who are students of the Book, 
that the revelation we get of Jesus Christ through 
His dealings with the Samaritans is no mean rev- 
elation. It shows Him superior to all prejudice; 
it reveals Him as the universal Saviour; it sets 
Him forth as broad-minded and large-hearted. 



84 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

Remember how bitter the feud between the Jews 
and Samaritans was. It was centuries old. It 
was religious. It was inherited. It was educated 
hatred. It was backed up by the fathers. It was 
so intense that the Jews had no dealings whatever 
with the Samaritans. In going from Judea to 
Galilee they would not go through Samaria, but 
journeyed round it, at great cost of labor and time. 
Not one Jew in every thousand had ever seen Ja- 
cob's well. They kept miles of prejudice between 
them and it, miles of bitter contempt and hatred. 
Through all this Jesus had to cut His way before 
He could reach Jacob's well, that He might offer 
salvation to the Samaritan woman and to the city 
of Sychar. Even His own beloved John, the Dis- 
ciple of Love, once wanted Christ to call down fire 
from Heaven and destroy a Samaritan village, be- 
cause it was Samaritan enough and showed pluck 
enough to refuse to receive those who had all 
along heaped contempt upon it. Christ refused 
John the miracle of fire. That is in Christ's fa- 
vor. 

But this was only one thing in His dealing with 
the Samaritans It was only the beginning. He 
never once recognized the bitter estrangement of 
the ages. On the contrary, He exalted the Samari- 
tan above the Jewish priest and the holy Levite, 
and gave the Samaritan the honor of being the 
ideal philanthropist of the world, the type of true 
benevolence for every age. This He did when He 



THINGS WE SHOULD LEAVE EOR CHRIST. 85 

uttered the Parable of the Good .Samaritan. Have 
you ever thought of the holy audacity which it 
required to utter that parable ? That parable is 
nothing short of the product of divine courage as 
well as of the impartial spirit which is no respecter 
of persons, but which appreciates worth because it 
is worth. Now, in the Scripture before us, Jesus, 
coming straight from the Temple, to the horror of 
every right-minded Pharisee, enters the territory 
of Samaria, asks a favor of a Samaritan woman, 
offers her the best gifts of Heaven, accepts of the 
hospitality of the Samaritans, sleeps under their 
roofs, eats at their tables, teaches in their streets, 
treats them as though they were as good as the 
Jews, and saves a whole city. In the Temple, 
between the Court of the Gentiles and the Inner 
Court, was a marble screen, a curiously carved 
fence, two feet high, beyond which no Gentile 
could venture. It was known as " the middle wall 
of partition." Had a Samaritan put his foot in- 
side of that "wall of partition" he would have 
been whirled away in a fury of rage, and stoned 
to death in the twinkling of an eye. But here, 
in this Scripture, is Jesus down in Samaria, tramp- 
ling into the dust that middle wall of partition. 
Here He is, Himself the spiritual counterpart of 
the Temple, admitting Samaritans within the pale 
of divine sympathy and love. 

Have I told you all that pertains to Christ's 
dealings with the Samaritans? Not all. One 



86 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

thing remains as. yet unref erred to. When the 
cross and the tomb have been passed, when the 
Resurrection has taken place, and when on His 
way to the Ascension He gives His disciples the 
commission to go into all the world and witness 
for Him among all nations, He mentions the Sa- 
maritans by name. He says to His disciples, 
" Preach salvation in my name to them." " Ye 
shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and 
in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the utter- 
most parts of the earth." What is this but the 
golden text among all texts translated into life? 
" God so loved the world, that he gave his only 
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him 
should not perish, but have everlasting life. " My 
fellow-men, the revelation of Jesus Christ, the Son 
of God, through His dealings with the Samari- 
tans, is a grand revelation. I do not wonder that 
this Samaritan woman felt the power of His great 
love, and yielded her heart and life to Him on the 
instant, and forgot all about rier mission to draw 
water from the well, and put in its place a rapid 
missionary tour to the city of Sychar. 

I should like at this point to speak of Christ's 
treatise upon worship, in which He declares a uni- 
versal God, accessible everywhere, and found in 
all places by the pure in heart, and approachable 
by all ; but for this I have no time. He issued 
the declaration of independence in the matter of 
worship. He preached the doctrine of absolute 



THINGS WE SHOULD LEAVE FOR CHRIST. 87 

liberty of conscience from all thrall of place or 
tradition in the matter of worship. He broadened 
out the Holy of holies until it took in the wide 
world. 

I should like at this point to speak of the estima- 
tion in which Jesus holds the single soul. An au- 
dience with just one immortal soul was an audience 
to Him ; and an audience worthy of His very best. 
The most essential truths of His Gospel He 
preached to audiences of one. There was only 
one man present when He preached the great doc- 
trine of the "necessity of regeneration" — Nico- 
demus. There was only one woman present when 
He preached the great doctrine of the " Resurrec- 
tion " — Martha. There was only one Samaritan 
present when He preached His Messiahship for 
the first time — the woman of Samaria. 

I should like at this point to speak of this 
woman as the best type of a good listener. There 
is a duty of listening and an art of listening. 
Good listening makes good preaching. Too often 
the ear is preoccupied. Invisible speakers are 
addressing it. It is under a spell. While the 
pulpit speaks, the pews are buying and selling; 
yea, they do a little business sometimes even in 
the middle of the long prayer. Who would at- 
tempt to deliver a message to a man a mile off? 
Yet there are some people in church to-night who 
are three thousand miles off. Listen as though 
you were the only hearer. I should like to speak 



88 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

of the art of good listening, but I cannot. I 
must sweep everything aside and centre my 
thoughts wholly upon this one fact of the story 
of Jacob's well, viz., " The woman left her water- 
pot." 

You understand the mental state of the woman. 
She was carried out of herself. She was lifted 
into a new life. She was face to face with One 
who met her highest ideals. She saw a new fu- 
ture. Her vision had a new outlook. Her water- 
pot, which was the symbol of her occupation and 
her past life, grew to be nothing; Christ grew to 
be everything. She was Christ-entranced, and 
Christ-absorbed, and Christ-controlled. The hori- 
zon of her life was widened. She came to that 
well a mere water-carrier. She left it a Christian 
missionary with all the ardor of a new faith. 
What does it signify — this substituting Christ 
for the water-pot ? It signifies that when Christ 
comes into one's life as an enthusiasm He changes 
the standard of values. When Christ becomes 
supreme, other things, as a matter of course, take 
subordinate places. It signifies this great truth : 
There are things which we should leave for Christ. 
We should be able to leave these things without 
a single regret. We should be able to leave them 
with enthusiasm, with joy, without so much as the 
cost of a thought. This is what the Christ-ab- 
sorbed do, but they are Christ-absorbed who do 
it. 



THINGS WE SHOULD LEAVE FOR CHRIST. 89 

Three things which we should leave for Christ 
are plainly suggested. 

In the first place, we should leave all fallible 
guides for Him who is the infallible Guide. 

In leaving her water-pot at the well, and going 
with all haste to the city to tell others of her 
great find, this woman left the Samaritan Penta- 
teuch, the fathers, the traditions, the very things 
which had been all in all to her; her standards, 
her guides, and she put Christ in their place. 
Christ was all in all to her now. Christ's teach- 
ings, and not the teachings of the fathers, were 
her rule of faith and life now. 

There is a like change in our lives, if we have 
accepted Christ in spirit and in truth. Fashion, 
the customs of the world, the criteria of society, 
popular literature, the force which guided us in 
the days gone by, are all displaced, and Christ's 
Gospel, and Christ's example, are our inspiration. 
We have exchanged the fallible for the infallible. 
Is there any one here who can question the advis- 
ability of such an exchange ? Do we not all know 
that we are the disciples of somebody? Why, 
then, not be the disciples of the best ? I can say 
truthfully to every one in this audience : " Some- 
body is your leader; somebody teaches you, and 
you follow." There is no need to argue this. 
You follow the man who edits that newspaper. 
You follow the author of that book. You follow 
the dictator of that political party. You follow 



9<* NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

that iconoclast. You follow the fashion plate of 
that tailor. There is somebody who is an author- 
ity in every man's life. This is so with the athe- 
ist ; this is so with the agnostic. My point is, 
choose the best. And I offer you Christ as the 
best. Be a disciple of Him who is infallible. He 
leads into the widest, and truest, and freest life. 
He comes directly from God and He leads directly 
to God. Say to Him while you now abide in this 
sacred presence : " To whom shall we go but unto 
Thee, for Thou hast the words of eternal life ? " 
We should leave the fallible for the infallible. 

In the second place, we should give up our 
prejudices, and, in the stead of these, we should 
substitute the world-wide loves of Christ. 

This, also, the Samaritan woman did; and it 
was this that made a new woman of her, and gave 
her a new and an immortal career. We have 
shown you that there were no prejudices in Christ. 
If the prejudices of His kindred had ruled Him, 
He would never have been at Jacob's well. The 
Jacob's well episode would have been an utter im- 
possibility. There were no prejudices in Him, 
and the woman felt the electric and purifying 
touch of that life which had only love in it. I 
know of no chains which bind a man to small- 
ness in everything like the chains of preju- 
dice. These make the narrow sectarian in church 
life; the bigot, the persecutor. These are the 
antique grave clothes wrapped around the body 



THINGS WE SHOULD LEAVE FOR CHRIST. 91 

when it is prepared for the sepulchre, and they 
mean death. They must be unloosed, and Laz- 
arus must be let go. The grandest work any man 
can do for us is to deliver us from our prejudices. 

A gentleman on the other side of the Atlantic 
told me this incident, which serves me here as an 
illustration. He said : " I was admiring, last 
spring, a tree in full blossom. It was a miracle 
of beauty. The gardener, seeing my rapture, said, 
with a shrewd, complacent air: 'Well, sir, I might 
say I gave the tree these beauties which you ad- 
mire.' 'Ah, how is that?' He replied: 'For 
seasons the tree bore nothing. I pruned its 
branches, but to no purpose. It occurred to me 
to dig down and prune its roots. I did so. I 
found that the tap-root had struck into a coarse, 
sour soil, and thence drew evil for the tree. This 
I cut and set the tree free from the sour soil to 
which the tap-root bound it, and you see the re- 
sult. ' ' That is it. Prejudice is the tap-root that 
burrows in the sour soil. He who cuts the tap 
root for us, and so sets us free from the unwhole- 
some, the mistaken, and the wrong to which we 
are in bondage, does the best possible thing for 
us. He gives us new life and new beauty of char- 
acter. 

Jesus Christ does this for us. He made the 
Samaritan woman a new woman, an attractive 
woman, the joy of all the ages; and He did this 
by simply freeing her from her old-time preju- 



92 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

dices. The woman entered a grand life the very 
moment she surrendered her prejudices and sub- 
stituted for them the broad loves of Christ. We 
must give up our prejudices for Christ. 

In the third place, we must leave all lower 
things and motives and ambitions and allow the 
higher Christ-like things and motives and ambi- 
tions to take their places. 

In the case of the woman of Samaria the water- 
carrier became the missionary. That was an ex- 
change of the lower things for the higher. That 
was a decided advance in the ambitions of life. 
All Christians are like this woman when they are 
found of Christ. Matthew the Publican becomes 
Matthew the Apostle. He forgets his money- 
desk. James and John forsake their nets and 
fishing-boats. Augustine leaves the teaching of 
philosophy and takes to the preaching of the Gos- 
pel. Constantine stops building temples to idols 
at Baalbec and uses the marvellous stones he has 
quarried in building a basilica for the Master. 
Where men do the same things after conversion 
which they did before conversion, new motives and 
ambitions are introduced into the doing of them 
These things have a new objective point. Busi- 
ness is made a medium of fellowship with God. 
The shop is consecrated and made a holy place. 
Gain is laid on the altar of divine service. Things 
that are questionable, which shadow the charac- 
ter, are forsaken for the glory of the Master. Un- 



THINGS WE SHOULD LEAVE FOR CHRIST. 93 

holy pleasures lose their relish. Only those things 
which elevate and lead Heavenward have the 
power to enchant. 

Do not say that I am putting painful restric- 
tions upon men and women in preaching as I now 
do. If you are enchanted with Christ, I am 
preaching pleasure, not pain. The woman of the 
text suffered nothing in leaving the water-pot. 
The higher things which we seek include all that 
is good in the lower things which we leave. 

The people of Dublin tell this story of a poor 
man who used to sweep the crossing of one of 
their principal streets : As he had swept the 
streets for years he became a well-known charac- 
ter to the hundreds who crossed and re-crossed 
where he daily labored. He was weather-beaten 
and illy clad. A prominent lawyer in the city, in 
his practice, came across a certain legacy for whom 
no heirs were found. The name of the testator 
haunted his memory, and became a torment to 
him. It tormented him because he said to him- 
self " that is a familiar name to me, but I cannot 
place it." At length it came to him — "that is 
the name of the old street-sweeper; I wonder if 
he could be of the same family ? " He studied 
the case up and found that he was. He was the 
heir whom the court wanted. The facts of the 
case established, it became the duty of this lawyer 
to make known to the old man his good fortune. 
The old man was hard at work when he went to 



94 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

him. There, in the middle of the street, he told 
him his story, and the old man stood, broom in 
hand and mouth wide open in astonishment. This 
is the way the story ends. " So carried away with 
the pleasure and excitement of his good fortune 
was the old man that, unconsciously, he dropped 
his broom where he was standing and followed 
the attorney to enter on his new career." The 
broom ! He had always been careful of that be- 
fore. The broom ! that had carried in it his live- 
lihood. But he dropped it in the middle of the 
street, and forgot it, and left it where the wheels 
of traffic would break it to pieces. Do you won- 
der at his treatment of the broom ? He is a rich 
man now. Why should a rich man hold on to and 
carry around with him an old broom ? I tell you, 
my fellow-men, leaving the lower things of life 
for the higher things of Jesus Christ is only drop- 
ping the old broom because we have become rich 
with the riches of our God. There is nothing 
painful in that. Our great concern should be to 
be absorbed in, and entranced by, Christ. Pain 
in giving up things comes to us only when we are 
not absorbed and not entranced. It should be ours 
to put the entrancement of Christ against the en- 
trancement of the world. It is because we are 
entranced by the world that we cling to the lower 
things. Are you entranced by the world, or are 
you entranced by Christ? Make that the ques- 
tion which you shall settle this Sabbath-day. It 



THINGS WE SHOULD LEAVE FOR CHRIST. 95 

is a question for the young, and it is a question 
for the old. It is as much a question for the old 
as it is for the young. 

Bunyan sets this forth in his immortal allegory. 
The masterpiece of his insight into life is just 
this : He places the Enchanted Ground right near 
to Beulah Land, almost at the end of the Celestial 
road, within eye-shot of the Celestial City itself. 
It is a master stroke of Satan, after a man has had 
experience, after he has come safely through the 
Slough of Despond, and escaped from Doubting 
Castle, and conquered Giant Despair, to take him 
with his vast experience and lock him up in the 
enchantment of the world, in luxurious laziness, 
and in inactivity. He retires him from religion. 
He makes a nonentity out of him. Are you talk- 
ing about giving up religious work — stepping 
down and out of the post of responsibility ? Let 
me tell you, you have reached the Enchanted 
Ground, and it is the place of the Christian's 
greatest temptation. If Satan gets you into that 
ground, you will never get to Beulah Land, al- 
though Beulah Land lies right over the line. I 
sound the note of warning, "Beware!" Meet 
the enchantment of the world by giving yourself 
up more and more to the enchantment of Christ 
and His service. 

I ask you to notice in closing how much de- 
pended upon the conversion of this one Samaritan 
woman, and upon the willing yielding of herself 



96 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

up to Christ. The conversion of the whole city 
of Sychar depended upon it. She carried in her 
decision the eternal destiny of a whole city. This 
is a point for those who have not made an out-and- 
out public decision for Jesus Christ. Your con- 
version does not stand alone and unrelated. No- 
body's conversion does. Does that not move you ? 
It moves me tremendously. Does the eternal des- 
tiny of others hang upon my decision for Jesus 
Christ ? Then I will decide for Jesus Christ right 
here and now. I will be saved for the sake of the 
salvation of others. I have put you in a solemn 
place, and, God helping me, I am not going to say 
a single word, or do a single thing, to help get 
you out of that solemn place, or to lessen your 
sense of awful responsibility. You hold in your 
hand the salvation or the non-salvation of others. 
If you decided for Christ you would carry with 
you the decision of every member of your house- 
hold for Christ. You know that. You would 
carry with you the decision of your friend. You 
know that. You would carry with you the decis- 
ion of your business partner. You know that. 
You would carry with you the decision of your 
fellow-clerk. You know that. If these do not 
become followers of Jesus Christ, who will be re- 
sponsible? If the woman of Samaria refuses 
Christ, and if the city of Sychar goes out into 
eternity Christless, who will be responsible? 
Who? 



THE PLUMB-LINE, 

OR 

THE HERDSMEN OF TEKOA. 




THE PROPHETS AMOS AND NAHUM. BY SARGENT. 
From the Frieze, Boston Public Library. 



IV. 

The Plumb- Line, or the Herdsmen of Tekoa. 

"And the Lord said unto me : Amos, what seest thou? And 
I said, A plumb-line. Then said the Lord, Behold, I will set a 
plumb-line in the midst of my people Israel." — Amos. vii. 8. 

The text is a drama. God and His prophet are 
the actors. This form of presenting truth is 
chosen to make truth striking and effective. One 
thing God is determined to do and that is, to get 
hold of the mind of man ; to be listened to when 
He speaks. For this purpose He adopts all expe- 
dients and all styles in presenting His revelations 
to the human world. Sometimes He throws these 
into the form of poetry and gives them to man 
clothed in the power of beauty. At other times 
He casts them into the form of thrilling history, 
and in this way captures the attention. Some- 
times He incarnates His message in a human life ; 
at other times He puts it into the form of a pene- 
trating question, which carries it right into the 
soul. Sometimes He uses a picturesque parable; 
at other times He works it into a drama. That is 
what He does in our text; He works His message 
into a striking drama. He holds up a plumb-line 



T02 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

and makes it talk to His people. " Behold, I will 
set a plumb-line in the midst of Israel." 

Drama, as a medium of revelation and a method 
of teaching, is very effective. It holds the atten- 
tion ; it instructs ; it makes thought and fact clear 
and tangible. Christ used it. He spake para- 
bles; and what are parables but dramas, i.e. y men 
and women dialoguing and acting their several 
parts? Notice how large is the stage and how 
many are the actors in that pearl of parables, 
"the parable of the prodigal son!" Christ's 
dramatization of truth was effective too. It not 
only held the attention of men, it moved them. 
Sometimes it moved them down to the very roots 
of their being. Take as an illustration the Phari- 
sees who vv-aited on Christ's ministry. It is writ- 
ten, " And they perceived that he spake this par- 
able concerning them." And did not that move 
them? Surely. So long as the truth remained 
a parable it was a picture which fascinated them ; 
but when it passed into an application, it at once 
became a judgment — a plumb-line — an expose of 
their conduct and character which moved them to 
wrath. In the form of an application it was the 
sting of fire touching their conscience. It an- 
gered them. Certainly Christ's drama had a 
moving power on that day when the people of 
Nazareth seized Him bodily and rushed Him to 
the brow of the hill on which the city was built, 
that they might hurl Him headlong over it to His 



THE PLUMB-LINE. 103 

death. As I rode up toward Nazareth, I found 
my eyes riveted upon that historic brow; and I 
said to my soul : " Soul, there is the witness that 
your Master was a faithful and an effective 
preacher. He moved people by His preaching. 
His sermons were pointed and direct." I was not 
satisfied until I was permitted to enter into the 
synagogue of Nazareth and see for myself the spot 
where He preached in such a moving fashion, and 
to read there in an audible voice the very scripture 
which He once read to the people when He de- 
clared Himself to be the promised Christ. 

But let us come back to the drama of the text. 
The actors are God and His prophet. God speaks 
to the prophet, and the prophet replies to God. 
They talk confidentially and familiarly. Mark this 
fact, God addresses the prophet by his name. He 
says, " Amos, what seest thou ? " He calls him 
by name. This is the Lord concentrating Him- 
self upon the individual ; and this God does with 
every child of His. He calls us each by name. 
There is always something tender when knowl- 
edge comes to a knowledge of one's name. It is 
the familiarity of love. There is an off-hand nam- 
ing of a person which amounts to nothing; but 
there is another naming which amounts to a bap- 
tism, yea, which is a holy sacrament. It means 
that we belong to God, and that God belongs to 
us. It means that we are satisfied with God, and 
that God is satisfied with us. It means that God 



104 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

and we are one in life and love and aim. The 
plumb-line dropped into such a fellowship reveals 
that the straight-line in God and in us is one and 
the same straight-line — i.e., God and we are one 
in all things. 

Who was this man called " Amos " who was so 
one with God that God called him by name, and 
employed him to speak -for'Him in Israel? Very 
little is known of the man. He wrote a very 
small book of one hundred and forty-six verses, 
and he is known only by and through that little 
book. The heroes and prophets of the Bible are 
divided into two classes; first, those who are 
mighty through their personality, and second, 
those who are mighty through their writing. 
Abraham, Samuel, Elijah, Elisha were mighty 
forces in their day ; but so few of their prophetic 
words have been recorded for us that they are fig- 
ures rather than voices to us — that is, they teach 
by their lives rather than by their words. They 
influence us as characters. It is different with 
Moses, Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel. These influ- 
ence us by their writings, which have come down 
to us, as well as by their characters. Amos must 
be classified with these latter men of the Book. 
He influences us by his writing. In this writ- 
ing there are, however, one or two verses which 
are autobiographic, and from these verses we 
evolve the story of his life. 

In brief this is the story of the life of Amos: 



THE PLUMB-LINE. 1 05 

He was born at Tekoa, a hamlet twelve miles 
south of Jerusalem, on the crest of the wilderness 
of Judea. This is the wilderness of which I spoke 
to you at large a few Sabbaths ago. Out on this 
unmitigated wilderness, this chaos of hills, where 
life is reduced to poverty and danger, Amos devel- 
oped a manhood which was abstemious, and rugged, 
and straight -forward, and full of beautiful simplic- 
ity. His wants were few, so his demands in life 
were few. On the windy uplands where he lived, 
his life was winnowed of everything that would 
pamper and weaken and make effeminate. He was 
all man. He was a herdsman out on those wilds, 
and he lived an out-door life. He had much time 
which he could call his own, and had large oppor- 
tunity to meditate and think and talk with God. 
There was nothing in the wilderness to bias his con- 
clusions ; nothing to warp his judgment. Here 
he got those figures and parables which give vital- 
ity, and vividness, and strength to his messages. 

You see from all this that Amos was a layman. 
This made him the practical prophet which he 
was. He had no diploma, no certificate of stand- 
ing, no papers. He did not spend a single day 
in the school of the prophets. He never went to a 
theological seminary. God is not dependent upon 
theological seminaries. If Harvard and Yale and 
Union will not give our young men the right type 
of faith and training, God will go to Northfield 
and pick out leaders from the country boys who 



106 NEW ERISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

are there, and who are working their way into an 
education; and God will find in them men who 
will grandly lead Christendom. He has already 
found such men there. God wants men who know 
no sophistry, who are single-hearted, straightfor- 
ward, practical, direct ; who possess a strong une- 
quivocal faith in the Bible, and who have the 
courage of their convictions. If Bethel, with its 
theological seminary, has not such men to give 
His people, God will go to Tekoa and make a 
prophet out of Amos the herdsman. 

But was there no work required and no work 
done in the making of Amos? Certainly there 
was work done. There v/as some long and hard 
thinking done. Days and years were spent under 
the tuition of God. The times and their need 
were analyzed. The writings of Moses were mas- 
tered. God's great principles which are operative 
in the universe of social life were studied and 
fathomed. Amos schooled and trained himself. 
He believed that Tekoa was on God's map, and 
that it was down on the route of God's march, and 
there amid the drudgery of his cowboy life he 
trained his conscience by communion with God, 
and by the study of the law, so that when God's 
hour struck, and the mask which concealed his 
true and growing personality was drawn, discerning 
eyes saw in him a choice soul, a glowing genius, a 
veritable prophet of Gud, the one man of all men 
for'the hour. He was a moral standard in himself. 



THE PLUMB-LINE. 107 

The method of preaching righteousness which 
Amos adopted was very simple. It was this : he 
formulated the great moral principles, which rule 
in human life and which have the omnipotent God 
back of them ; and he brought the facts of the life 
of Israel alongside of these principles, and then 
from the correspondence of principles and facts, 
or from the lack of correspondence, he made clear 
the doom of Israel. When he announced that 
doom, his words were peals of thunder. 

We cannot but admire the tact of Amos in the 
execution of his task. It was his task to rebuke 
Israel for their sins. Israel constituted the north- 
ern kingdom ; Amos belonged to the southern 
kingdom. The two kingdoms were rivals. To 
get a hearing from one's rival required sagacity. 
Amos possessed the requisite sagacity. He ap- 
proached his purpose adroitly and by progressive 
steps. He began afar off. He began with Da- 
mascus, and uttered his woe against its sins. 
Damascus was an old enemy of Israel, and the 
people responded to the prophet's words, and said, 
" Good; he is a man of truth." The next day he 
uttered his woes against Gaza, or Philistia. Phil- 
istia was another enemy of Israel, and the proph- 
et's second woe was as pleasing as his first. It 
increased his fame. The next day Tyre, another 
enemy of Israel, was denounced. The day follow- 
ing a fourth woe was hurled against a fourth foe, 
against Edom. Then a fifth woe followed, the 



ioS NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

woe against Moab. The next day Amos was 
brave and took up and handled his own nation, 
Judah, and denounced its sins. This won Israel 
completely. They said "this man Amos is as 
great as Elijah; he is a veritable prophet of God." 
You can imagine that each day his audiences 
grew. Israel liked the way he handled other peo- 
ple's faults. The last day has now come, and it 
is Israel's turn. This is the culminating point, 
and toward it the prophet has all along been work- 
ing. He has the ear of the people now, and he 
effectually delivers his message to them, and brings 
them face to face with their sins. He teaches us 
how to deal with men. He would be a good man 
for the pulpit of to-day. 

Amos dealt directly with the people. Other 
prophets dealt with the rulers of the people. 
For example, Nathan and Gad dealt with David; 
Elijah dealt with Ahab. Amos spake to the 
people. He met them face to face and openly in 
their presence tested them by holy principles. He 
dropped the plumb-line of principle right into 
the midst of their wealth, their social fashions, 
their treatment of the poor, their spirit of worship, 
and their ideals of religion. His ministry culmi- 
nated one day at Bethel in the midst of the people. 
There was a great feast in process there, and to the 
feast Amos directed his steps. In the midst of the 
thousands of Israel he enunciated principle after 
principle, and arraigned fact after fact from the life 



THE PLUMB-LINE. 109 

of Israel, and then made rousing and pointed appli- 
cations. He swept the crowds with conviction. 
There was no answer to his sermon that day. 
"You cannot answer a thunder-storm; anything 
an opponent may say after a whirlwind is feeble." 
There was no attempt to answer him. Only this 
took place : Amaziah, the priest, who was direct- 
ing the feast, stung by the brave and burning 
words of Amos, confronted Amos and used his 
judicial authority, and in the name of the king 
silenced the prophet and cast him out of the 
place. That is the way he was answered, that is 
the way he was disposed of. The prophet was 
gagged. All he could do now was what he did 
do, viz., sit down and write out his prophecy and 
make a book of it. Amos silenced, wrote a book. 
He was the first of all the prophets to write a 
book. The book which he wrote is the book 
which gives us our text. His silencing by priest 
Amaziah was not an unmixed evil. It impelled 
him to write his book, and by so doing to set the 
example to the other prophets of writing their 
prophecies in books, and thus making them pow- 
ers for all time. 

The text is a fair exhibit of the way Amos 
presented truth to the people. He dramatized. 
In the drama of the text, which might properly be 
called "The Drama of the Plumb-line," he intro- 
duces God to Israel as the chief actor. He repre- 
sents God as holding up a plumb-line before the 



no NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

people and saying to them : " Behold, I will set a 
plumb-line in the midst of Israel." 

Now what is God's message to the world 
through the plumb-line? That is our present 
question. I answer, this is the message of the 
plumb-line, viz. : Man is a responsible creature. 
He is responsible to himself; he is responsible 
to his fellow-men; he is responsible to his God. 
His responsibility is the most solemn fact in all 
his history. It is the greatest fact. 

It is so because he has to deal with God. God 
fixes his responsibility. The omniscient God tests 
him — his innermost thoughts, his principles, his 
motives, his purposes, his associations, his avo- 
cations, his pleasures, his religion, and his char- 
acter. God applies the plumb-line. Man is tested 
by an unerring God, and by an unerring plumb- 
line. 

Are you afraid of this fact? Does it terrify 
you ? Do not be terrified ; you have no reason 
to be afraid. God has a noble purpose in apply- 
ing the plumb-line. He wants to make you per- 
fect; He wants to bring to light your defects that 
He may remove them. Every plumb-line has as 
its objective point a perfect building, full of grace 
and symmetry and strength. The decree of the 
plumb-line is this : Cl Let every building be so 
erected that it shall be a safe dwelling-place for 
man." Let any man be built according to God's 
plumb-line, and he will be a veritable temple of 



THE PLUMB-LIME. Ill 

the Holy Ghost, a perpetual dwelling-place of 
God. I used to be afraid of the testing of the 
omniscient God, but one verse of the Bible has 
taken away this fear, viz., this verse: "The Lord 
searcheth to know his people that he may do them 
good." God's omniscience is consecrated to the 
service of doing good to the children of men. We 
test God, we test Christ, we test the Bible ; why 
should we object to be tested in return by God, 
and by Christ, and by the Bible? 

My fellow-men, you know what a plumb-line is. 
It is an architectural instrument. In architecture 
it is indispensable. It is a simple cord with a 
plummet on the end of it. When thrown out into 
the air it oscillates and vibrates and swings, and 
sways to and fro until the plummet finally stops 
and rests, and the cord which holds it forms a 
straight line. That is what every builder wants 
— a straight line — that he may run up the wall 
which he is building alongside of the straight 
line and have his wall straight. A bulging wall, 
a bowing wall, is a thing of weakness ; a straight 
wall is a thing of strength. A straight line is a 
simple thing, but it is an essential thing in this 
world. A thousand things depend upon it. With- 
out it the walls we rear would lose their balance. 
Without it there would be no fifteen and twenty 
storied houses in New York. Without it there 
would be no geometry ; but can any one calculate 
what geometry has done for the world? There 



H2 XE1V EPISTLES FROM OLD LAXDS. 

would be no measurement of distances. The 
world absolutely could not get along- without the 
straight line. It is part and parcel of the order 
of creation. Things must be built on the perpen- 
dicular, and must be kept on the perpendicular. 

My fellow-men, now that you know what the 
plumb-line is, what do you think of the plumb- 
line? I am anxious that the plumb-line shall 
stand well in our estimation. It is introduced 
here by the text as a test, and is made to take part 
in the work of inspection. This is likely to prej- 
udice us against it. It is exalted as a critic in our 
midst. We are fond of criticism only when some 
one else is criticised. We are not fond of it when 
we are the party subjected to it. It is natural to 
us to entertain hard thoughts of every critic who 
brings to bear his canons of criticism upon us per- 
sonally. The plumb-line is a critic. What is 
your opinion of the plumb-line ? 

Personally, I highly prize the plumb-line, be- 
cause I keep constantly in mind God's purpose 
in judging us by it. He means to make us moral- 
ly and spiritually straight-up-and-down men and 
women. He means to make us like His own holy 
Self. I classify the plumb-line with such things 
as these : the alphabet, the multiplication table, 
the grammar, the catechism, and the crucible. As 
a boy I worked hard in mastering the alphabet, 
and the multiplication table, and the grammar, and 
the catechism. I hated the name of the man who 



THE PLUMB-LINE. 1 13 

wrote the grammar, and set down the Westminster 
divines as a hard-looking set of old theological 
fossils, with not a particle of love for children in 
their stony hearts. I saw nothing to admire in 
the alphabet, and only recognized the separate 
letters in it; because I hated each one of them 
in their regular order. That was years ago. I 
think differently of these things now. The cate- 
chism is a grand compendium of truth ; it is much 
in little; it is truth systematized, truth analyzed, 
truth clarified by exact definition ; it is truth inter- 
preted and truth arranged in a form that can be 
remembered. The grammar reduces language to 
a science, masters it for us, and makes it usable. 
The alphabet opens a door into a thousand minds, 
and introduces us to the thought of all genera- 
tions. It captures the best thought of the world 
for us, and makes it visible and eternal. The al- 
phabet means Homer's Iliad, the dramas of 
Shakespeare, the psalms of David, the writings 
of the prophets, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 
It means all these grand things in an imperish- 
able form. 

These are the things with which the plumb- 
line is associated in my mind by natural affinity. 
And they are all grand and serviceable. They 
are all parts of the world's progress. They are 
all able to speak in their own defence and give 
a laudable reason for their existence. The alpha- 
bet says, " I give perpetuity and circulation to the 
8 



ii4 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

best thought of the world ; the Bible is my prod- 
uct." The grammar says, " I give speech its per- 
fection." The catechism says, "I give truth its 
luminous definition. " The multiplication table 
says : " I save labor and give men the mastery 
over figures." The crucible says: "I give the 
world pure gold, gold of the seventh refining to be 
wrought into coin and jewelry and crowns. " The 
plumb-line says : " I give the world its architect- 
ure — the Parthenon of Athens, St. Paul's of Lon- 
don, and St. Peter's of Rome. I bridge rivers and 
chasms, and build homes and throw up into the 
air glorious temples. I correct everything that is 
crooked and weak. I give the world the straight 
line, and the straight line gives the world whole 
sciences which are useful and indispensable. " 
Verily the plumb-line is a grand thing. 

Now just as the physical plumb-line is a grand 
thing in the physical world, the moral and spir- 
itual plumb-line is a grand thing in the moral 
and spiritual world. That is the point of our 
text. We need the spiritual plumb-line because 
we are prone to measure ourselves by wrong and 
defective standards. We have made substitutes 
for God's plumb-line. We use the imperfect 
among our fellow-men as a plumb-line, and meas- 
ure by them. The large-feeling self-satisfied 
Pharisee measured himself by the publican who 
stood afar off in the temple. " God, I thank Thee 
that I am not as other men are ; or even as this 



THE PLUMB-LINE. 115 

publican." Certain men in Christ's day took the 
fashion set by aristocracy as the proper standa r d ; 
they asked : " Have any of the rulers believed on 
him ? " We substitute the spirit of compromise 
as a plumb-line ; we substitute public opinion. We 
substitute the common law of the land. For ex- 
ample, if we want to evade an honest debt which 
has grown old, we plumb-line our conduct by the 
common-law statute of limitation. By common 
law our debt is outlawed ; so we claim we have no 
debt. In God's eyes that is a base swindle. Ac- 
cording to God's law nothing can liquidate an 
honest debt but the actual payment of that debt. 

But let us limit our application of the drama of 
the plumb-line. The subject is too large for gen- 
eral treatment. Let us limit it to ourselves as a 
church. Let us realize this one fact, viz. : God is 
here dropping His plumb-line into our midst, and 
testing us as a Christian church. He wants to 
show us wherein we are defective; for He wants 
to improve us, to correct us, to make us stronger 
and more successful. He wants to get us ready 
for a magnificent future. He wants to give us a 
new life. 

I hear you ask just here : What is the plumb- 
line which God uses in testing us as a church ? 

The question is pertinent. In the days of Amos 
God used great and everlasting principles as a 
plumb-line. What does he use in our day ? Let 
me hear you answer : What do you think He uses ? 



Il6 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

One replies, " He uses the most successful church 
in the community as His plumb-line. " Another 
replies: " He uses the Bible; that is His plumb- 
line." Another says, "He uses our opportuni- 
ties as a plumb-line. To whom much is given 
from them also much shall be required." All of 
these answers are very good, but there is a better 
answer. The better answer is this : " Christ is 
God's plumb-line." He contains and sums up in 
Himself all the excellences of all the other plumb- 
lines, and adds to these all that is necessary to 
perfection. Christ is God's straight line. Our 
church is to be judged and tested by Jesus Christ 
— His spirit, His life, His gospel, and His ideals 
of a Christian church. He plumb-lined the seven 
churches of Asia, away back in the past ; and now, 
this very hour, He is plumb-lining us. 

Are all things in our midst as Jesus Christ 
would have them ? If not, we are a weak church, 
-notwithstanding our numbers, our wealth, and 
our men noted in the community. Each single 
thing in our midst that is not according to the 
mind of Christ subtracts just so much from our 
real and lasting success. For success we must be 
according to the mind of Christ. A church that is 
not according to the mind of Christ is a bulging 
wall, from which stone after stone will drop until 
the whole wall is levelled to the ground. Christ 
is in our midst just now asking questions. Let us 
reverently listen, and let us carefully gather up 



THE PLUMB-LINE. 117 

and ponder the revelations which these test ques- 
tions of His bring to light. Each question He 
asks is the dropping of the plumb-line alongside 
of our latest work. 

The first question which the Master asks is, 
" Where is Amos ? " " My church should be full 
of stalwart laymen ; thinking men who consider 
the signs of the times ; men who make a deep and 
thorough study of the church itself, its defects, 
its possibilities, its needs, its reputation, its influ- 
ence, and who willingly respond to the suggestions 
and the demands which come out of such a study." 
Amos is the man who puts the church first in his 
life. He is in business for the church. He fol- 
lows his profession for the church. He selects 
the location of his home with reference to the 
church. He arranges the engagements of his 
social life so as not to conflict with the services 
of the church. Where is Amos ? Which of you 
men is Amos ? 

The second question which the Master asks is, 
" Where is your Pentecost ? " A Pentecost should 
be a constant thing in every church. This is a 
possibility. When the conditions are realized and 
complied with, it is an actuality. To be filled 
with the Holy Ghost, and with power, is the birth- 
right and privilege of every Christian. Brethren, 
are you enjoying a Pentecost ? Are you person- 
ally full of the Holy Ghost and of power? Are 
you Pentecostal men and women? If you are, 



n8 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

then why do you not live and work like Pente- 
costal men and women ? 

The third question which the Master asks is, 
" Where are your converts ? " "If you have been 
working for converts, you have converts. My 
early church worked for converts, and it got three 
thousand on one day and five thousand on another 
day. The Church of God gets just what it works 
for. When it works for conversion and employs 
the means for conversions, it gets conversions. 
When it aims simply to make itself a home for 
the well-to-do, a home for social life, a place for 
mere entertainment and the feeding of the pride 
of fellowship, it succeeds in that — i. e., it becomes 
a mere club-house with its music and fine oratory, 
its sociables and entertainments. It becomes a 
refined playhouse. When it aims at nothing, it 
gets nothing. I have put this church into this 
community to save men. Where are your con- 
verts? The primitive churches all had converts. 
Where are yours ? " 

Brethren, let us make this question of the Mas- 
ter a personal question. That is what it is. Let 
us take it home each one to himself and herself. 
It is an individual question. The individuals 
make the church. It is the individual man who is 
the duplicate of Christ in the world. God is here 
to-day calling, " Amos ! " " Amos ! " " Amos ! " 
"Amos!" "Amos what seest thou?" "Amos 
what believest thou ? " " Amos what doest thou ? " 



THE PLUMB-LINE. 119 

"Amos what contributest thou? " "Amos whom 
savest thou ? " " Amos where are thy converts ? 
I have given you sons and daughters to bring up 
for me, where are they ? Are they one with you 
in the Christian life ? I have given you brothers 
and sisters ; I have given you business partners ; 
I have given you friends and neighbors. Have 
you reproduced yourself in these? Where are 
your converts ? If you have associated with peo- 
ple and have not led them to Christ, you have 
done them more harm than good. If you have not 
secured their conversion, you have neglected them. 
If they have seen nothing in you that they desire, 
nothing over and above and better than that which 
the world gives them, then either you have not 
got the true religion yourself or else you have mis- 
represented the true religion to men." My fellow- 
men, be assured of this, viz. : the men of the world 
are moved Christward only by an anointed charac- 
ter and a transfigured life. But they are moved 
by these. Personality influences. The Gospel 
incarnated is a power. When you can show men 
something in yourself, something noble and profit- 
able and enriching ; something which they have not 
got ; something which Christ gave you, and which 
Christ alone can give, they will go with you to 
Christ, and they will join you in your Christian faith 
and devotion. When you are what you ought to be 
you will have converts. Where are your converts ? 
But are there not some present in this service 



120 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LAXDS. 

who as yet are out of Christ ? It seems to me 
there are. There is a question here for you. 
The plumb-line of God is laid to your life. Christ 
asks you this testing question : " What more can 
you reasonably demand of me in order to faith and 
acceptance ? " And what more can you demand of 
Christ ? What more can you reasonably ask ? He 
has given you His divine revelation; He has re- 
vealed the Father unto you; He has brought life 
and immortality to light; He has given you His 
perfect and all- satisfactory human life; He has 
given you His holy doctrines ; He has given you 
His cross which is the exhibit of God's infinite 
love; He has given you the proof of His resurrec- 
tion from the dead ; He has given you Christen- 
dom with its incomparable civilization. Name a 
single other thing which He ought to give you, in 
order to procure your faith!' If you cannot name 
a single other necessary thing which He ought to 
give you, then you stand this day before all the 
universe condemned, self-condemned, for your cold- 
hearted, inexcusable sin of unbelief. For long, 
long years you have been putting Christ to the 
test, and have been perpetually keeping Him on the 
defensive; but now on this plumb-line-day Christ 
meets you and puts you on the defensive. Y\~hat 
you need above all things is to be searched through 
and through ; and this is what Christ is doing here 
and now : searching you through and through. He 
is asking this searching question : " What more 



THE PLUMB-LINE. 121 

can you reasonably demand of Me in order to faith 
and acceptance? " 

I tell you openly and frankly there is nothing 
more that you can reasonably demand of Christ. 
He has given you all you need. You have now 
all that the millions ever had who have believed 
in Him. You have that which has made great 
Christendom. As you value your immortal soul, 
search yourself this day and find if you can ask a 
single additional thing as an answer to Christ's 
straightforward question. Either the plumb-line 
is wrong or you are. Which is wrong? 

What shall be the result of the letting down of 
God's plumb-line into our midst this holy Sab- 
bath ? Christ has been here and 'has questioned 
us. What are we going to do with His questions ? 
We know the intent of His searching questions ; 
are we going to allow them to accomplish this 
intent? He means His questions to set into the 
light our defects. And then He means that we 
shall give ourselves to the eradication of our de- 
fects. He means His questions to act as a revela- 
tion of our possibilities. The very things He 
asks us if we have, we can have. The very things 
He asks us to be, we can be. The very things He 
asks us if we have done, we can do. The very 
blessings He asks us if we have received, we can 
receive. The holy ambitions which He asks us 
if we entertain, we can entertain; and more, 
can realize. The converts which He asks us if 



122 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

we have secured, we can secure. We can be the 
church He expects us to be, and we can each be 
the individual Gospel-power He expects us to be. 
Brethren, above all things, that which we need 
is just this : To be searched and to be tested by 
God's straight line. It was God's thorough and 
effective searching that made Abraham, and 
Moses, and David, and Isaiah, and Amos, and 
Peter, and John, and Paul. These men were per- 
petually letting the white light of God shine upon 
their characters, and upon their lives, and into the 
innermost recesses of their soul. God searched 
them often, and after every searching they took 
a new start in His cause. We are about to leave 
the temple, but do not let us leave this subject. 
Let us continue the study of it through this whole 
day and through this whole week. Let us go 
into our own lives with God's searchlight and 
God's plummet ; and as we search and discover, let 
us eliminate and introduce, repent and resolve, re- 
nounce and re-dedicate. Let us throw away the old 
life and enter upon the new life. The one thing, 
the one thing, the one thing we need is to be 
searched and searched and searched by Him whose 
eyes are omniscient, and whose supreme desire tow- 
ard us, His children, is that we shall be holy even as 
He is holy, and perfect as He is perfect. " Search 
me, O God, and know my heart ; try me, and know 
my thoughts, and see if there be any wicked way 
in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." 



WHY NOT THE MEN AS WELL AS THE 
WOMEN? OR, A FAMILY 123-26 
FROM THE SEASHORE OF GALILEE. 



CHAPTER V. 

Why Not the Men As Well As the Women ? 
Or, A Family From the Seashore of Gali- 
lee. 

" Then came to him the mother of Zebedee's children with her 
sons, worshipping him." — Matt. xx. 20. 

My text contains my subject by implication 
rather than by direct statement. But it contains 
my subject. My subject is in the blank spaces 
of the text. Here is Salome with her boys, James 
and John, but no Zebedee. The wife in loyal al- 
legiance to Jesus, but the husband not. Zebedee's 
sons magnificent Christians; but Zebedee, the fa- 
ther, outside of the church. As one writer says : 
" Zebedee was never found with his family among 
Jesus' professed disciples. He alone of his fam- 
ily was not at the cross." Now why did he ab- 
sent himself from Jesus ? Why did he leave all 
the religion of the home to be looked after by the 
wife and mother? Why must the woman of the 
house do all the praying, and all the public con- 
fessing, and attend to the religious training of the 
children, and maintain the character of the home 
for religion ? " Why not the men as well as the 
women? " 



128 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

I answer, there is no reason "why not." Men 
need religion just as much as women do. And 
the religion of Jesus Christ is as fitted to men as 
it is to women. Every man who follows in the 
footsteps of Zebedee shirks his duty, robs himself 
of his privileges, throws an additional burden on 
his wife which she ought not to be compelled to 
bear alone, and cheats religion of the moral influ- 
ence and power which it is possible for every 
manly character to generate and contribute. Men 
have not as yet gotten beyond Jesus Christ that 
they should stay apart from Him. Jesus Christ 
is not unworthy of the homage of men ; He has 
not diminished in the least iota. There is noth- 
ing wrong, nothing lacking, relative to the power 
of Jesus. His power is still here. It is here in 
His strong pictorial words ; it is here in His beau- 
tiful and perfect life ; it is here in His superb 
self-sacrifice; it is here in His cross. Jesus 
Christ is still worthy to receive all honor and 
glory and power and riches and wisdom and 
blessing. 

For the benefit of the men who are not in open 
allegiance to Jesus Christ, and who are not out- 
and-out Christians, let us discuss briefly Zebedee 
and his conduct. Let us look at the pros and the 
cons in his case. 

There are some things to be said for Zebedee. 
He was the father of two of the grandest apostles. 
Would that save him ? No. Only a man's per- 



WHY NOT THE MEN? 129 

sonal faith in Christ can save him. If this be so, 
then what does it signify to say that " Zebedee 
was the father of two of the grandest apostles of 
Jesus? " How is this in his favor? It signifies 
that he was not an open opposer of Jesus. While 
he was an aloof, he was a friendly aloof. 

You have before your minds the story of the 
way Jesus took his sons away from him. It is 
this : Jesus at the beginning of His public min- 
istry one day walked along the shore of the sea of 
Galilee until He came to the boat-landing of Zeb- 
edee. He found the boats in, and Zebedee was 
there, and his sons James and John and the hired 
servants ; and they were all at work mending the 
nets. Jesus made that journey with an object. 
He went especially to call James and John to a 
life of discipleship. When He reached there, He 
told His errand and invited the young men to 
join Him at once. We think of this visit of Jesus 
and of this invitation as being a test to James and 
John. We forget all about Zebedee. It was a 
test to him. It meant a dead loss to him. His 
sons were full grown and capable of helping in the 
business. They were able to take many a load 
off his shoulders. He needed them in the boats. 
And then, besides, who was this Jesus who wanted 
to take them away ? He had no career as yet. It 
was a great sacrifice for Zebedee to make, but he 
made it. When Jesus called his boys to leave 
him, he made no objection to their going with 
9 



13° NEW EP/STLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

Jesus. Their call changed all his plans of life for 
them. The lake seemed lonely without them, but, 
no matter, he let them go. He remained behind, 
willing to work for his family, and to pay the bills, 
whatever their religion might cost him. The 
apostles must have somebody to provide for their 
living expenses. 

This sets Zebedee out in a very favorable light. 
Yes, it does — that is, if there be nothing more to 
be said — that is, if this be the whole story. But 
this is not the whole story. This is where you 
men, who are simply friendly aloofs, make your 
mistake. You stop reading here. You make this 
the whole story, and you congratulate yourself that 
you are like the head of the Zebedee family. You 
are not unfriendly to Christ and His Church. 
You put no hindrance in the way of your wife's 
religion. You allow the boys to go with her, and 
are rather glad to have them go. You furnish 
money for the church collections, and pay the 
pew bills willingly. You toil at business for this 
very purpose. Thus you state your case, and you 
say : " This is the man I am ; and, to tell the truth, 
I call my conduct quite fine." It would be quite 
fine if that were the full statement of the case. 
It would be quite fine if there were not something 
a great deal finer. To go the full length of duty 
is finer. 

Let me now state the other side of the Zebedee 
case. 



WHY NOT THE MEN? 131 

His failure to step forth and to be out and out for 
Christ does not satisfy those who love him most, and 
who most wish for and pray for his salvation. It is 
not kind to them. It shadows him with a doubt. 
It leaves the way open for this question : Not- 
withstanding he was a good man, a generous man, 
and a financial supporter of the church through 
his wife ; yet, after all, did he really take Christ 
for his Saviour; did he really believe in Jesus 
Christ to the saving of his soul? Was his atti- 
tude toward Christ one of child- like humble trust, 
or was it merely a patronizing attitude ? There is 
a vast difference between patronizing Jesus Christ 
and trusting Jesus Christ as your Saviour. The 
former puts self first ; the latter puts Christ first. 
A man may let his wife join the church, and his 
children join the church; and he may willingly 
pay all the church bills of his family, and yet do 
nothing more than patronize Christ. Now I leave 
it to you : Will patronizing Christ save a man ? 
If you were in Christ's place, would you consider 
it an honor to be simply patronized, when you 
knew that you were worthy of deep-souled love, 
and homage, and the absolute self -surrender of 
men ? I leave this also with you for answer : If 
you fail openly and fearlessly and constantly to 
confess your faith in Jesus Christ, is there not 
room for an interrogation point to be put opposite 
your name when your form lies.silent in the casket 
and when your friends gather to take the last look ? 



I3 2 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

Is there not room for a distressing doubt to spring 
up in the hearts of those who love you best, and 
who want, above all things, to know that it is well 
with you forever? Is it not likely that this pain- 
ful thought may flash through their minds : " If 
he really believed in Jesus Christ, he would have 
said so ; he would have confessed this belief as we 
have heard him confess other beliefs ? " My fel- 
low-men, an open honest confession of your faith 
in Jesus Christ is the greatest service of consola- 
tion which you can render to your friends in anti- 
cipation of the hour when they shall be called 
tearfully to imprint the last kiss upon your cold 
brow. You can make it certain to them that 
heaven is sure to you. 

There is another point in this line, viz. : The 
failure of Zebedee to do his full duty by openly 
allying himself to Christ and Christ's cause is an 
implied reflection on his wife. It discounts her 
religion and the power thereof. The Bible says 
that where the wife believes and the husband does 
not, that if the wife be true to Christ, and thor- 
ough in her faith, and complete in her consistency, 
she shall by her religion win her husband to Christ. 
You may praise your wife's religious character 
by word of mouth, or you may write a nice letter 
about her religious life to a friend ; but it is in- 
consistent for you thus to praise her religious char- 
acter while you dishonor her religion, that power 
which built up her character. The only way you 



WHY NOT THE MEN? 133 

can honor her religion is by being religious your- 
self. So long as she fails to win you, her religion 
is discounted. Any man can see this. And any 
man can see also that his standing aloof from his 
wife's religion not only discounts her and her re- 
ligion in the eyes of the public, but it positively 
injures her in carrying out her religion in life as 
she ought. She would be vastly stronger, and 
more grandly consistent all around with the help 
of your strength and by your example, if you 
were one with her in Christian faith and life. 
Her heart is drawn between the church and the 
home. She is sometimes tempted to discredit her 
own judgment in favor of the man's. The boys 
in the family take the father's manlier views and 
habits, and stop Sabbath-school, and later on stop 
attending church; and this, too, is against her, and 
makes religion a burden to her. When any one 
from the home goes to church, it is mother and 
the girls ; and thus in that family religion is rep- 
resented to be a thing altogether for women, and 
not a thing for men. I have heard Salome, that 
good woman who gave the Church two of its 
grandest apostles, blamed, and severely blamed, for 
the failure of her husband to become a confessed 
Christian. I have heard her called " an ambitious 
woman." I have heard it said that there was 
nothing in her religion but family pride. She was 
ambitious for her boys, and had an eye to the main 
chance, and joined the company of Jesus because 



134 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

of that. She was infatuated with the coming king- 
dom and coveted right hand and left hand positions 
in it for her family. Zebedee saw through her, 
and weighed her correctly. He thought he could 
make more out of his boats than she was ever 
likely to make out of that coming visionary king- 
dom, and so he stayed by his boats. Now if so 
good a woman as Salome has been thus discounted 
and criticised because of her husband's non-confes- 
sion, how do you think your wife will be rated in 
view of your non-confession ? You may argue as 
you please, but your persistent non-confession puts 
her at a disadvantage before the public. 

The chief thing against Zebedee is this : He 
broke up the wholeness of his family in the Lord. 
I want to lay great stress upon this point. For 
what Zebedee did many men in our midst do ; and 
it is a serious thing to do. It is a greater strike 
at Christ, and at the cause of Christ on earth than 
any one thinks. Do you not know that Christian- 
ity is a family religion ? Christ wants the whole 
family, parents and children, brothers and sisters, 
and what Christ wants that we should work for, 
and that we ought to be able to secure. For with 
Christ upon our side nothing is impossible. Let 
us work in our homes until not a member there 
shall be found Christless. Christ is in the midst 
of the churches to-day asking not only for the in- 
dividual man and woman who is there, but asking 
for the families of the church. Non-confessing 



WHY NOT THE MEN? 135 

father, do you hear that ? Non-confessing brother, 
dp you hear that ? You who are Christians in the 
home, labor to give Christ the desire of His heart; 
invite the non-confessors in your households to 
Christ ; talk with them, pray with them, tell them 
what God has done for you, picture to them the 
joy that will come into the home when the family 
is unbroken in its faith and love Christward, and 
when all can sing together the songs of Christ. 
Be dead in earnest in pleading with those of your 
own household, and let your earnestness rise up 
to the point of agony. Earnestness is argument. 
Earnestness is power. All through human life it 
is the earnest man that is the influential man. It 
is the men who are fire-pillars that lead. Now 
there is nothing so worthy of your earnestness and 
fire as the immortal destiny of your loved ones. 

We do not emphasize as we should the family 
character of the true religion of God. This is a 
misfortune. Because, when we lose this view of 
religion as a covenant of God with the family, we 
miss one whole side of the revelation of God as 
we have this revelation in the Bible. God was 
not only the God of Abraham, but he was the God 
of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, and the God of the 
twelve patriarchs. Andrew and Peter were broth- 
ers ; so were James and John. Mary and Martha 
were sisters. The Phillipian jailor and his house- 
hold came into the Christian church together, and 
so did Lydia and her household. Christianity 



I3 6 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

would be less than Judaism if it failed to reach 
the family and to make it the unit of the Church. 
For the Old Testament brought families as fami- 
lies under the law of God. The old Hebrews went 
up to offer sacrifices by families. No member of 
a Hebrew family thought of being absent from the 
paschal meal, and, least of all, the head of the 
household. Christianity is not one whit behind 
Judaism in anything. The true religion is pre- 
eminently a religion of the family. God wants re- 
ligion to run in the blood, and there is no reason 
why it should not run in the blood. I am seeking 
households to-day for the Lord Jesus Christ. I 
am seeking for family altars. I am searching for 
the straggling members of our homes ; the belated 
father, the overdue brother, the lost son, those 
who, by their tardiness in confessing Christ, are 
keeping the family fragmentary and broken before 
God. I tell you, my fellow-men, that there is a 
tremendous spiritual power in the presence and 
the united voice of an unbroken family in the 
Lord, as that family Sabbath after Sabbath fills 
the pew in the church, gathers around the Lord's 
table, and lives a peaceful, happy, God-fearing life 
in the community. It is as near the perfection of 
religion as it is possible to reach outside the walls 
of the new Jerusalem. If this be so, then it is an 
awful thing for the one member, or the two mem- 
bers of the family to remain apart from Christ, to 
refuse openly to confess Christ, and thus to nul- 



WHY NOT THE ME IV? 137 

lify or to hinder the power of the home for Christ 
and God in the community. My brother-man, 
there is no personal life that you can live, no char- 
acter that you can build up, no service that you 
can render to the community that can be substi- 
tuted for that wholeness of the family in the Lord 
which you prevent. 

How many families there are in our community 
like this family from the seashore of Galilee of 
which Zebedee was the head. What was wrong 
with Zebedee? He broke the wholeness of his 
family in the Lord. He let his wife Salome go 
up to Jerusalem and minister unto the Lord ; he 
let his sons James and John become the apostles 
of Jesus, but he did not join them. When Christ 
called them he made no objection, but he did not 
join them. He did many commendable things, 
but the main thing he did not do; he did not join 
his family in following Christ.. He broke the 
wholeness of his family in the Lord. There is 
something sublime and majestic in the white- 
haired veteran Joshua standing before Israel and 
confessing with heroic determination : " As for 
me and my house, we will serve the Lord." That 
testimony of a completed household for God moved 
all Israel to renewed fidelity and inspired the 
whole nation that day with uplifted hands to give 
themselves afresh to God in a solemn holy cove- 
nant. The confession of a whole household for 
Christ — that is confession in its highest and most 



I3 8 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

influential form. Zebedee might have had that, if 
he only had been true to himself, and to Jesus 
Christ, and to his family. But as it was, he broke 
the wholeness of his family in the Lord and weak- 
ened the power of all. I want to beget in your 
souls an enthusiasm for the family in its entire- 
ness for Jesus Christ, so that you may not rest 
until you reach it in your homes. Every member 
of the family for Christ ! Let that be our motto 
and our watch-word. For this end let us live, and 
for this end let us confess Christ at home, and in 
the church, and everywhere. The family for 
Christ ! Let that be our goal. But Zebedee, thou 
man at the head of the pew, that goal can never 
be reached until, as the head of the family, you do 
your duty and lead your household in the confes- 
sion of Christ. 

The Zebedee problem is now fairly before us ; 
let us deal with it. Let us answer the question 
which it carries in it, viz. : Why not the men as 
well as the women ? In dealing with the Zebedee 
problem, I wish first of all to set myself right with 
our noble Christian women. Let there be no mis- 
understanding here ; while we seek for men and 
regret their absence, we do not undervalue the 
women who have been true to Christ and His 
Church. In our efforts to win the men we are 
not valuing one above the other, we are simply valu- 
ing both. While we call for Zebedee, the man, 
we prize Salome, the woman, and the grand work 



WHY NOT THE MEN? 139 

which she has done. We delight in the number 
of women in the church, and in their broadened 
influence there during these later days. The more 
women the better. If the men kept out of the 
church entirely, we should be glad to keep the 
church going solely for the women. We do not 
even consider it a discredit to have it said that 
religion is good for women ; that is true, it is good 
for women. The Christian women of America are 
not the inferior part of America, they are decidedly 
the advanced part of America. They have finer 
intuitional powers, and a quicker and a keener 
insight into what is true and good and beautiful 
than men have. They love higher things and 
purer things than the men do. They are the con- 
science in the home and in society to a larger ex- 
tent than men are. They take to religion more 
quickly and more heartily than men do, because 
they have a finer, purer nature than men have ; 
and because they have more of the courage of their 
convictions than men have, and because there is 
more hold-out in a woman's nature than there is 
in a man's. There is more appreciation in a 
woman than in a man; she is more as a friend, 
and more as a lover. It is no discredit to religion 
to have her indorsement; and this we wish to as- 
sert with all our might, even while we give our 
complete selves up to the one sole work of secur- 
ing for religion the indorsement of those who are 
men. The tacit assumption that man is superior 



140 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

to woman, because woman is religious and man is 
not, we denounce as an assumption and nothing 
but an assumption. The superiority is on the 
other side. Woman plus religion; man minus re- 
ligion — any one can tell which is the greater. I am 
not seeking men to-day so much because the Chris- 
tian religion needs men, as I am seeking men be- 
cause men need the Christian religion. The Chris- 
tian religion could get along grandly with only the 
women. If I were confined to a choice, I would 
rather have Salome five times over than Zebedee. 
I am seeking Zebedee, but I am seeking Zebedee 
for Zebedee's good. I will venture to say that 
Salome was the better of the two. I will venture 
to believe that she led in everything else, as she 
led in religion, She placed her boys well in the 
Church, and I surmise that everything else that 
was well placed in that family was well placed be- 
cause she placed it. It is said that John, her son, 
was acquainted with the high priest of the nation; 
I take that as an evidence that she saw to it that 
the family were well associated and that they had 
high fellowships and friendships. If Zebedee, her 
husband, had had the sense to fall in with her 
plans, as her sons fell in with her plans, she would 
have made him as great in history as she made her 
boys. What she made out of the boys shows what 
she had in her. 

This in my point : While we seek for men, we 
do not wish the women to feel that we undervalue 



WHY NOT THE MEN? 141 

them or their great work in the church. We are 
compelled to lay the emphasis upon men, because 
men fail so largely to see their need, their oppor- 
tunity, and their duty. It is my conviction that in 
religion there is no difference between men and 
women — that is, no difference in their needs. To 
be religious is to be manly just as much as to be 
religious is to be womanly. As I see life, men 
and women have pretty much the same needs all 
around. They sit down together at the same fam- 
ily table. They breathe the same tonic air of win- 
ter, and thrive in the same spring sunshine. They 
admire the same beauties of nature and are thrilled 
alike by the same rapturous strains of music. Now 
what is there to differentiate them in religion ? 
Nothing. As they enjoy the same earth, they 
need the same heaven. What is good for the con- 
science of one is good for the conscience of the 
other. There is no sex in conscience any more 
than there is in God. The cross speaks alike to 
both. The duty of telling the truth in all their 
dealings, in the parlor, in the store, in society, is 
an equal duty with both. When both bend over 
the same coffin they need precisely the same vis- 
ion of heaven and the same hope of meeting their 
loved ones before the throne of God as a source of 
comfort. Tell me, ye who are men, what one re- 
ligious want has woman that man has not ? And 
what duty or right is binding on her that is not 
binding on you ? 



14 2 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

But I am asked by the men : " Is there not a 
difference between the life of men and women? 
Is not a life of trade, for example, altogether dif- 
ferent from a life of housekeeping in its needs? " 
I answer : Yes, it is different ; different in stir and 
bustle, different in breadth and variety, but in its 
call for religious principle, No, it is not different. 
In the call for exemplification of Christ and His 
Gospel, No. Many a man says to his wife, " Oh, 
it is all right and good and beautiful for you to 
be a Christian living here in the quietude of this 
home, but you are not in business, you do not rub 
against the people I do. My life is an altogether 
different life." Mr. Zebedee, do you mean to tell 
Mrs. Zebedee, do you want Mrs. Zebedee to under- 
stand, that you are not as true in your business as 
you are in your home, or as she is in her home; 
and is that what you wish your boys to under- 
stand? Do you wish to inculcate upon them 
that there is one morality for the home life and 
another morality for the business life ? That it 
is right for a man to be a different man in differ- 
ent places ? If not, then what is the point of 
comparison between your wife in her home life 
and you in your business life? I tell you that 
business without religion is soulless, conscience- 
less, degrading, and destructive, and God's curse 
rests on it, just as it rests on the home that is 
without religion. But I am asked again by the 
men, " Are you not altogether one-sided in laying 



WHY NOT THE MEN? 1 43 

all the blame at the door of us men, who are 
outside of the pale of the church? Must not 
some one else share the responsibility with us in 
our -non-confession? If, for example, there were 
more manly men in the pulpits, men of the broad, 
grand, fearless type which men like and respect, 
might we not be drawn to confession? '" Ah, that 
is another question, and when you press me with 
it, I say quickly and readily, Yes. Yes, there 
ought to be a higher type of men in the pulpit; 
men broader in every way. I have seen such 
men in the pulpit, men of large sympathies, men 
not afraid of thought nor of investigation; fair- 
minded men, manly men, and every time I have 
found them in the pulpit I have found men in the 
pews and men at the communion table. Men do 
not find enough of manhood in the pulpit to draw 
them, not enough heroism in sermons to satisfy 
them. Given a Luther with his manhood back of 
the truth, with his straightforwardness, his refu- 
sal of all compromise, and the result will be men 
enough won by him to launch and make success- 
ful the great Reformation. An old woman in the 
pulpit is not going to fill the pews with stalwart 
men. 

While I make this admission I press this point 
also : You have direct access to Christ and can 
find Him irrespective of the pulpit. Here is His 
Book, and He is in it. Deal with Him directly. 
You are not called upon to confess His ministers; 



144 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

you are only called upon to confess Him. But I 
must not allow myself to be switched off from my 
subject and side-tracked. I am dealing with you, 
and not with delinquent, deficient ministers, and 
not even with defective overbearing churches. If 
I were speaking to the churches, I should try and 
be as true in telling them their duty as I am in 
telling you your duty. I should tell them to avoid 
the coercing conscience and all assumed authori- 
ty. I should tell them not to put man-made 
creeds between men and Christ. Avoid over-be- 
lief as well as under- belief. An over-plus in creed 
is about as bad as a minus in creed. Get your 
creed down to a minimum and your grand life up 
to a maximum. Over-statement of belief produces 
unbelief. Lift up, exalt, press home the few sim- 
ples in religion, viz. : the things which are essen- 
tial, which are believable, usable, workable, and 
which are absolute and certain, and give hypoth- 
eses, and far-fetched deductions, and elaborate 
theories, and complicated dogmas the go-by. Chris- 
tianity is life ; insist upon that. Emphasize the 
fact that religion consists not so much in putting 
restrictions upon a man as putting a noble power 
into a man to expand him and develop him. See 
to it that the church meets the live wants of men, 
and gives them the sympathy and fellowship that 
are purifying and uplifting. When men can find 
in a secular brotherhood more " brotherliness by 
illustration " than they are able to discover in the 



WHY NOT THE MEN? 14$ 

Church of Christ, you must expect that these or- 
ders and brotherhoods will gain recruits at the ex- 
pense of the Church. I should say all this and more 
also to the churches were I talking to them. But 
I am not now talking to the churches, I am talking 
to you, and I refuse to be switched off the track. 

In dealing with the Zebedee problem it is proper 
to ascertain just how much of a problem the Zeb- 
edee problem is. It is very easy to exaggerate 
here, to make it out that fewer men have been 
connected with Christianity than really have been. 
It is said that Sydney Smith, confronting his Edin- 
burgh congregation, the larger part of which was 
habitually shawled and bonneted, was wont, as he 
read the One Hundred and Seventh Psalm, to lay 
peculiar emphasis and stress on the third word in 
the refrain : " Oh, that men would praise the Lord 
for His goodness and His wonderful works to the 
children of men." Are all congregations like 
Sydney Smith's congregation ? While there have 
not been as many men connected with the cause 
of Christ as we could desire, yet there har not 
been a paucity of men. Christianity has always 
had men, and men belonging to the very front 
rank of manhood. It began with men. There 
are at least four men mentioned in the New Tes- 
tament to every one woman. Thus it was in the 
apostolic times ; thus it was in sub-apostolic times. 
The writers of the Bible were all men. And what 
see we to-day ? Our general assemblies, our na- 



146 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

tional councils, our church congresses, our inter- 
national associations and conferences, grand sub- 
stantial bodies of men leading the Church of God 
and representing Christianity impressibly to every- 
body, Also our great educational institutions, our 
colleges and universities founded by Christian 
men, and manned by Christian men. To-day 
American statistics show us that a vast majority 
of the young men in our colleges and universities, 
the coming leaders of thought, the coming centres 
of influence in business and statesmanship, and in 
education, and in jurisprudence, and in our courts 
and in our churches, are in living and open connec- 
tion with some branch of the Christian Church. 
In this Galilean family there were two men to one 
woman in the Church. It is a mistake to exag- 
gerate the absence of men beyond due proportion; 
it is unfair to the men, and it is unfair to the 
Church. It leads the Church to believe that it 
has no right to expect the men to come into its 
ranks. Church of God, confirm not the men of 
the procrastinating spirit in their procrastination 
by a lack of expectation with regard to them in the 
performance of their duty. The moment you give 
it out by word or by example, or by letting them 
alone, that you do not expect them to respond to 
your call or join your ranks, that moment you 
weaken your grip upon men. That moment you 
concur in their false ideal. The expectation of 
the Church? There is a mighty power in that. 



WHY NOT THE MEN '? 147 

It surrounds men like an atmosphere. Have you 
forgotten the thrill in the motto which Nelson sig- 
nalled all through the British navy on the eve of 
the great battle ? " England expects every man to 
do his duty!" That expectation of the nation 
made every man in the British navy a Nelson, and 
gave England a great victory. The expectation 
of the Church is educational. It acts outside and 
it acts inside. It leads us to press the Lord's de- 
mands upon men, and it leads men manfully to 
meet the Lord's demands. Why not the men as 
well as the women ? There is no reason why not ; 
and men to-day are beginning clearly to see this, 
and are responding by the whole phalanx to the 
call of the Church. The best men you know are 
in the Church of God, and there is no good reason 
why they should not be. They are broad-minded 
men, they are the searchers after truth, they are 
the men you want near you in trouble, and they 
are the men you trust. I was interested lately in 
reading "The Problem of Jesus," by George Dana 
Boardman, of Philadelphia, and interested above 
all in his chief argument for the Christ. What 
is his chief argument for the Christ? This, viz. : 
The men whom the Christ has made — the shining 
men in the shining ranks of the Nazarene. He 
covers whole pages in his interesting book with 
nothing but names, the names of men, names gath- 
ered from all the higher walks of life where brain 
and character tell. Every name is like every well- 



14$ NEW EPISTLE 3 PROM OLD LANDS. 

tuned, sweet-toned instrument, in tne grand orches- 
tra which sets the walls of the building and the 
hearts of the audience vibrating with simple strain 
and thundering chorus. 

Passing the college buildings of Cambridge, 
England, a cynic one day accosted a gentleman 
coming out of the hallway, and sneeringly asked, 
" And what do you manufacture here ? " The gen- 
tleman accosted was one of the professors of the 
university. Recognizing the sneer and the unbe- 
lief in the tones of the voice of the cynic, he re- 
plied: "We manufacture power, sir." And he 
followed his answer with the simple recital of the 
story of Cambridge University, and with an enu- 
meration of the names of the men it had given 
England and the world. In this way he literally 
annihilated the cynicism of the man. He could 
not have chosen a more effective method of reply. 
Cambridge University has behind it no less than 
six centuries filled with its fine industries, and 
with the minds which it has developed and fur- 
nished. From the days of Spenser, Dryden, and 
Milton, down to Gray, Coleridge, Byron, Words- 
worth, and Tennyson, what a procession of schol- 
ars has passed out of those portals ! Old Iron- 
sides, Oliver Cromwell, once trod these halls ; and 
so did Pitt, and so did Palmerston, and so did Wil- 
berforce, and so did Macaulay. Lord Bacon read 
by this window, and Herschell by that. It was 
here that Sir Isaac Newton pondered the problems 



WHY NOT THE MEN? 149 

of the coming ages, and it was here, too, that Jer- 
emy Taylor and Lightfoot joined themselves to 
God and fathomed the depths of His Holy Book. 
Cambridge University is known and honored 
through her sons. 

George Dana Boardman, in his " Problem of Je- 
sus," follows the method of the Cambridge profes- 
sor. He makes the disciples of Jesus argue for 
Jesus and prove Him worthy of faith, and love, and 
honor, and confidence. He points to the men 
whom Jesus has made; and these are the very best 
men of history. They are men of character and of 
large and purified affection. They are men brim- 
ful of the finest mentality. They are the leaders 
of thought and of glorious causes. They are the 
scientists of the world, the poets, the religionists, 
the astronomers, the reformers, the educators, the 
heroes, the philosophers, the philanthropists, the 
artists, the musicians, the statesmen. Dr. Board- 
man fairly wearies us with the great burden of 
great names of the men whom Jesus has made, 
and then he asks us, " What are you going to do 
with the problem of Jesus? " 

My brother man, the one argument why you 
should accept of Jesus Christ and ally yourself 
with Him and with His on-marching cause is Jesus 
Christ Himself. You want truth; He is the 
truth. You want purity; He is purity. Men 
searched His life through and through, but found 
no fault in Him. They were bitter men who made 



150 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

the search, and they wanted to find flaws, but there 
were no flaws. The man who crucified Him 
washed his hands before the crowd and said, " I 
find no fault in Him." The man who betrayed 
Him cried out in agony, " I have sinned in that 
I have betrayed innocent blood. " Above all 
things you claim that you want manhood, manhood 
to inspire you, manhood after which to pattern, 
manhood to reproduce, manhood to be proud of; 
in Him you have manhood in its perfection. His 
is the finest of fibre. In Him not an attribute of 
manhood is left out. From Calvary to this pres- 
ent hour the secret of His power has been this : 
What He is ; His full-orbed manhood. Men felt 
His power when He lived among them. They 
touched Him, and He touched them on every 
side ; He walked with them, talked with them, ate 
at their tables, sailed in their fishing-boats, feasted 
with them, but all the while they felt that there 
was a grandeur in Him that was not in them. 
His presence was electric. He made new men of 
them simply by being with them. See what He 
did for the rough fishermen of Galilee ! He so 
refined them and enlarged them and filled them 
with the truth of God that He set them on the 
thrones of thought to rule the world, and from 
these thrones of thought they are ruling the world 
in this latest and most enlightened century. What 
Christ did for men in the apostolic days He is 
doing for men to-day : He is bringing them to 



WHY NOT THE MEN? 151 

their best selves. It is that you may be brought 
to your best self that I am calling you to Christ. 
I want all men to come, but especially do I want 
the men who are at the head of the families in 
our community to come. I want them to have a 
God for themselves, and I want them also to have 
a God whom they can give to their children. 

I was reading yesterday the " Song of Moses," 
which he wrote after the victory of the Red Sea. 
It is a grand production. In the reading I stopped 
to ponder this one remarkable phrase which Moses 
used, viz.: the phrase " My father's God." Did 
you know that phrase was in that song? It is. 
It was Moses' joy that his father had a God, and 
that joy was so great that it compelled expression in 
this his greatest composition, and on this the great- 
est occasion of his life. It burst forth into song, 
and Moses could not prevent it. The fact that 
his father had a God was counted a blessing equal 
to the blessing of freedom just bestowed upon 
the whole nation of Israel, and it had to have a 
place in the Marseillaise of the Hebrew life. Fa- 
thers in the households represented here to-day, are 
you going to leave your children a God in whom to 
trust and in whom to rejoice? A God to fill their 
life with song and with victory ? For your child 
to be able to look up into heaven and say " My 
God " means much; it is majestic, it stirs his na- 
ture to its depths, it brings a great peace and power 
into his life; but for your child to be able to add 



152 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

to that address to heaven and say not only " My 
God," but also "My father's God," that means 
much more, very much more; it touches the ten- 
derest chord of the human heart. It brings God 
to the very cradle. It brings God to the fireside 
of the old homestead. It brings God into the 
very core of the whole of the home life. There 
is nothing a man can leave his children equal to 
God. Husbands and fathers, join your wives and 
sons in their church life. Let the whole family 
be in the household of faith; Zebedee, Salome, 
James, and John ! Why not ? There is no reason 
why not. 



MOUNT EBAL A VOICE OF GOD. 



VI. 

Mount Ebal A Voice of God. 

" Then Joshua built an altar unto the Lord God of Israel in 
Mount Ebal." — Joshua viii. 30. 

When I last read this Scripture which gives me 
my text, I read it on the summit of Mount Gerizim. 
The Bible was before me in the printed page, and 
the Bible was before me in every feature of the 
broad landscape. It makes the Bible a new book 
to read it in its own land. My Gerizim-view of 
Palestine was the first of those grand hill-top views 
which keep constantly breaking in upon one's 
soul, as one rides through the Holy Land. From 
the summit of Gerizim you can actually see from 
Pisgah, which lifts its head on the other side of 
Jordan in the east, to Hermon, which lifts its head 
in the north. You wonder how Moses, who was 
never in Canaan, could describe with such accuracy 
Gerizim and Ebal. Here is the explanation : Their 
summits were visible from Pisgah. With them 
before him in the distance, he planned the cere- 
mony of the nation's dedication to God, which 
Joshua carried out in the vale between these moun- 
tains. On the summit of Gerizim I could take in 



158 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

the whole of the historic side of Mount Ebal, which 
was directly opposite, and the whole of the historic 
valley which ran at its base. It required no severe 
play of imagination to picture the holy scenes por- 
trayed by this Old-Testament Scripture. Down 
in the centre of the little vale, where we tented at 
night, was the ark of the covenant, and around it 
were gathered the priests and Levites. On the 
slopes of Gerizim were six tribes, a million and a 
half of people, and on the slopes of Ebal were six 
tribes, a million and a half of people. There has 
never been such another congregation gathered 
together on earth for the worship of God. That 
congregation stands unrivalled in all history. 
When the priests turned their faces and looked 
Gerizimward and uttered the blessings, a million 
and a half of people responded " Amen. " When 
the priests turned their faces and looked Ebalward 
and uttered the curses, a million and a half of 
people responded " Amen." Those responses were 
like the sound of many waters and like the noise 
of mighty thunders. 

By these solemn scenes God made these two 
mountains vocal, and ever since each has been a 
voice of God uttering great moral principles ; even 
those principles which are shaping the destinies of 
men both for time and for eternity. God com- 
pelled the covenant nation to enter the promised 
land by the gateway which lies between Gerizim 
and Ebal, and upon these two mountains, which 



MOUNT EBAL A VOICE OF GOD. 159 

are visible from all parts of the land, He wrote as 
upon two pillars these everlasting facts demon- 
strated by universal history, viz. : 

1 . Sow the good and you shall reap the good. 

2. Sow the evil and you shall reap the evil. 
The first principle He wrote upon Gerizim, and 

the second principle He wrote upon Ebal. The 
two mountains declare to the whole earth that 
God blesses and that God curses ; and that bless- 
ings and curses come according to the conduct of 
man. 

It is popular in selecting a theme from this re- 
gion of Palestine to select Gerizim as a subject, 
and to use it as a symbol of the blessings of God. 
That is right; but that is not the whole of the 
Christian tourist's duty. Ebal should not be neg- 
lected. But for the most Ebal is neglected. 
Hence to balance things, I select Ebal and not 
Gerizim. Ebal has its symbolism. There is an 
antipathy abroad against Ebal. That is wrong. 
Ebal does not deserve it. Ebal has a mission to 
serve both Godward and manward, and that mis- 
sion it nobly performs. My point is this : Ebal 
is just as real as Gerizim. The malediction is 
abroad in human life just as really as is the bene- 
diction. And what is more, God is just as grand 
and as praiseworthy in issuing the curses as He is 
in issuing the blessings. According to this Scrip- 
ture an altar should be built on Ebal. Now an 
altar is for the worship of God. 



160 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

What arrests my attention is this : God ordered 
that the first great and national altar for His wor- 
ship in Canaan should be built on Mount Ebal. 
An altar on Mount Gerizim ! That would not 
strike us as anything odd or out of the way ; it is 
easy, it is natural to worship God amid benedic- 
tions and pleasing gifts. But an altar on Mount 
Ebal, the mountain of malediction ; worship offered 
to God as the God of the curses ; that does strike 
us as odd, and that does arrest our attention. It, 
however, is instructive. It lays down this truth, 
viz. : God is to be worshipped for everything He 
does, even His anathemas are causes for thanks- 
giving, and his curses are worthy of praise. The 
Holy Spirit commands men to rear an altar and 
worship God for all the dark sayings of His law, 
which thunder His wrath and strike terror into the 
guilty conscience ; and he bids men thus to sacri- 
fice to God upon Ebal because there is not a curse 
uttered upon that sacred mountain that .is in any 
way unworthy of God. Christ was as much Christ 
when He uttered the woes as when He uttered the 
beatitudes, and He was just as true to the interests 
of mankind. 

That we may become interested in Ebal with 
its altar, and that we may get some searching 
thoughts for the day in which we live, let us take 
up two things for our study, viz. : The history of 
the altar and the symbolism of the altar. 

I. The History of the Altar. 



MOUNT EBAL A VOICE OF GOD. 161 

The one point in the history upon which I wish 
especially to dwell is this : The altar was prede- 
signed by the Lord Himself. The altar was not 
a suddden inspiration of Joshua. It was not 
Joshua's idea at all; it was God's idea. Its plans 
and specifications had been drawn up more than 
forty years prior to the day of its erection. God 
gave the plans to Moses ; and among the last things 
which Moses made emphatic in the hearing of 
Joshua was the building of this altar. The altar 
was predesigned. If you will, look over its his- 
tory, you will find that everything pertaining to it 
was fore- arranged with great accuracy and with 
precise minuteness. God was very particular about 
it. He specified the day it should be erected — the 
day on which the Hebrews crossed the river Jor- 
dan. He specified the exact spot where it should 
stand. It should stand on Mount Ebal. 

The most important thing about the altar on 
Mount Ebal as a predesigned work was the way 
in which it was to be built. This also was speci- 
fically indicated. To show this, let me quote from 
the plans and specifications. The plans read thus : 
" There shalt thou build an altar unto the Lord thy 
God of stones; thou shalt not lift any iron tool 
upon them; thou shalt build the altar of the Lord 
thy God of whole stones. " " Thou shalt not build 
it of hewn stones, for if thou lift up thy tool upon 
it, thou hast polluted it." " This is peculiar, " you 

say. Yes, it is. But it is instructive. Its object 
ii 



x62 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

is to lead the Hebrews to recognize that in their 
relations with God in the item of salvation, they 
cannot give, but only receive ; they cannot design, 
but only execute. The lesson taught is the lesson 
of subordination to God upon the part of man. 
The essential fact enunciated is that God is the 
sole Author of the order of worship and of the 
system of truth which should guide men in their 
worship. My fellow-men, we must take our con- 
ceptions of God from God Himself. Unless our 
conceptions of Him be true and right, our worship 
will necessarily be defective. 

That He should be the Author of the order of 
worship and of the system of truth seems to be 
nothing but common sense, when we remember 
our ignorance of Him and recall the fact that truth 
is not innate in us, but must be revealed to us. 

I take great comfort from the fact that God 
instructs us in this matter, and that He explicitly 
directs us. Were it otherwise, we should be all 
at sea. What rest and confidence could we have 
in worship if God had not not given us laws gov- 
erning us in worship ? That you may see the rest 
and confidence which the appointment of God gives 
in worship, take this one point. Look at the ine- 
quality of worshippers as you see them in the old 
Hebrew tabernacle ! Some are rich and some are 
poor. Some can offer hundreds of bullocks, and 
still have large herds left ; others never owned a 
bullock and never will. If there were no divine 



MOUNT EBAL A VOICE OF GOD. 163 

regulation, what would the poor man do ? Could 
he stand by the side of the rich and offer his hum- 
ble gift from his small means without harrowing 
misgivings as to its acceptance ? Dare he put a 
pigeon or a turtle-dove by the side of his rich 
neighbor's bullock, and feel that when the two of- 
ferings were put into the balances of heaven the 
scales would be in exact poise ? Uninstructed, he 
dare not ; but instructed, he dare. When God ar- 
ranges our worship, such perplexing questions as 
the inequalities of gifts are settled. The case of 
the poor is provided for as accurately as the case 
of the rich, and in the divine arrangement God 
proves that He is no respecter of persons. If 
there be a willing mind, He accepts according to 
that a man hath. In the balances of heaven a 
conversation in a garret by the bedside of a pau- 
per may outweigh the greatest sermon before the 
noblest audience. The timid tinkle of a widow's 
mite may be heard further in heaven, and may 
make sweeter music in the ear of God than the 
loud ring of the millionaire's golden coin. A tur- 
tle-dove, and a measure of flour, and a wafer baked 
on the fire-plate of the poor are as acceptable to 
God as the finest of the herd offered by the rich. 

Now, if we are dependent upon God for a revel- 
ation, it is only a trite thing for me to say that this 
revelation must come wholly from God, and must 
be accepted absolutely, and must be implicitly fol- 
lowed by man. Clear as this may seem, man is 



164 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

not willing to submit in actual life to God's revela- 
tion. He arrogates to himself the right to revise 
God's work, and he imagines that his revision is a 
vast improvement upon God's original. See man 
as he deals with this altar of God's planning ! 
There is the altar built of rough, uncouth boulders, 
without symmetry or regularity, without artistic 
beauty or attractiveness. Man says to himself, 
" This will never do ; there are possibilities of 
beauty and symmetry here, and the whole work 
must be reshaped. Every stone must be submit- 
ted to my chisel and mallet, and must be polished 
and beautified, and made to fit and to square. My 
innate consciousness of the fitness of things is 
offended; it dictates a change, and its dictation 
must be observed, for my innate consciousness is 
the highest known authority." Pointing to his 
works, he says, " Behold how I have brought 
beauty and order and grandeur out of the crude 
elements of nature ! Look at my temple, a gem 
of art ! And at my mansion, and at my monu- 
mental pillar ! This altar must be submitted to 
me as these have been. " 

Confident of his own skill, he takes his mallet 
and chisel and begins the work of reconstruction. 
But every time his mallet drives the chisel into 
the stone, every time a corner is chipped off, every 
time an angle is rounded, God's voice cries, " Thou 
hast polluted mine altar ! " An altar of man's de- 
signing is worse than no altar. It is a polluted 



MOUNT EBAL A VOICE OF GOD. 165 

thing in God's sight. A system of doctrine built 
after man's ideal is a bold and open rejection of 
God's system, and is far worse than a mere blank : 
it is a polluted thing in God's sight. An order 
of worship substituted in place of God's order is 
worse than no order. It is a polluted thing in 
God's sight. According to the divine ipse dixit 
of this Scripture everything in the religious life, 
in doctrine and in practice, which has not as its 
warrant a " Thus saith the Lord," or its equivalent, 
as a basis, is a polluted thing in God's sight. 

We are living in an age when men are alto- 
gether too free with God's prerogatives ; when 
they too easily set Him aside, and substitute for 
His appointments their own fancies and concep- 
tions. If it be true, as we find it in this Scrip- 
ture, that God demands men to worship Him and 
to believe in Him according to His revelation, and 
that He is so particular that He tells them they 
shall not even touch or change a single stone in 
His altar, then it is our duty to give this fact 
prominence, and to run it up before men moun- 
tain high. Then it is our duty to insist upon its 
recognition. This only is the safety of the Church. 
This only is the way to secure acceptance with 
God. 

The duty of the hour which God has laid upon 
the Church is to make her theological artificers, 
and sculptors, and lapidaries understand that 
there are divine laws under which they must work, 



166 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

They must build with the stones of truth just as 
God has given them, whether these be angular, or 
globular, or conical, or cubic; whether they be 
massive or diminutive, porphyritic or sedimentary, 
terrestrial or selenic. Especially must they be 
made to understand the restrictions of their trade, 
when they come to deal and work with the stones 
on Mount Ebal. It is these stones that are not 
to their mind. The stones found on Mount Geri- 
zim they are willing to use without subjecting 
them to their chisel. These are some of the 
stones of Gerizim which they accept, " God so 
loved the world that he gave his only begotten 
Son." "God shall wipe away all tears from all 
eyes. " " Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit 
the kingdom prepared for you." These stones 
are to their mind. But while they accept the 
stones of Gerizim and build with them without 
hammer and chisel, they will not accept of the 
stones of Ebal and build with them without ham- 
mer and chisel. It is wonderful what changes 
they do make upon the stones of Ebal by their 
skilful chipping. When they have reduced them 
to uniformity of size, and to the regularity of the 
cube, you would not recognize them. Let me il- 
lustrate : 

A friend of mine in New Jersey writes : " I once 
found a stone upon Mount Ebal, and being per- 
plexed by it, I sent it to my neighbor. It was this 
stone: 'And these shall go away into everlasting 



MOUNT EBAL A VOICE OF GOD. 167 

punishment. ' My neighbor did not know what to 
do with it. It was not to his liking and he could 
not make it to his liking. Finally the happy 
thought came to him to send it to a famous relig- 
ious lapidary, who works in one of the theological 
seminaries, and who makes a specialty of working 
upon these stones as his only trade. He did send 
it, and this workman worked upon it, and returned 
it as beautiful as a beautiful ode. He thought 
that no man in his senses could teach that it 
meant just what it said. It was a poetic concep- 
tion of great merit, and of great beauty to any one 
who had poetic receptivity." But was my Jersey 
friend satisfied? No. Why not? Because he 
reasoned thus : If this verse of Scripture, " these 
shall go away into everlasting punishment," be 
not a fact but only a poetic fiction, then its com- 
panion verse of Scripture must also be no fact, but 
a poetic fiction, viz., " The righteous shall go into 
life everlasting." To be consistent you must po- 
etize all around. Ah ! this is the trouble, and this 
always will be the trouble. The same skilful exe- 
getical stroke which strikes the reality out of the 
world below strikes the reality out of the world 
above. 

I have given you the experience of my friend 
from New Jersey, let me now give my own expe- 
rience. It was in connection with a famous theo- 
logical lapidary in the city of New York. This 
celebrated divine gave a course of Sabbath even- 



1 68 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

ing lectures upon the apostles of our Lord. Peter 
and James and John were stones from Gerizim, 
and were easily handled. But Judas Iscariot, he 
was a regular Ebal boulder, of the toughest and 
most unimpressible kind. The lecture upon Ju- 
das Iscariot was the lecture I went to hear. I was 
curious to witness the reputed ascension of Judas 
to the skies. The lecturer of course put him up 
there. He built a magnificent heavenly palace for 
Judas out of rhetoric and imagination. No man- 
sion could be grander. He made it out to his 
own satisfaction, that because Judas was the great- 
est sinner, therefore his salvation would be the 
grandest exhibit of God's glorious grace. Then 
he dwelt upon the repentance and confession of 
Judas, and declared that " any kind of sorrow on 
account of sin meant eternal life." Rhetorically 
considered it was a beautiful heavenly mansion 
which he constructed. But when he finished it, 
and when it stood forth in its grandeur and com- 
pleteness, I saw two bolts from God's word strike 
it, and they struck it full and fair on the base. 
These bolts were hurled by the hand of divine 
truth. When the great cloud of smoke and dust 
had passed away, and the flying debris had settled, 
and the atmosphere had become clear, I looked, 
and there was not one stone of the beautiful man- 
sion left upon another. One of the bolts which 
struck the fabric was this : " Godly sorrow work- 
eth repentance unto salvation not to be repenteth 



MOUNT EBAL A VOICE OF GOD. 169 

of; but the sorrow of the world worketh death." 
It is not true that any kind of sorrow for sin 
means eternal life ; the sorrow of the world on ac- 
count of sin means death. This was the Judas 
type of sorrow. The other bolt was this : " The 
Son of man goeth as it is written of him; but 
woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is 
betrayed ; it had been good for that man had he 
never been born." Of no soul that ever reached 
heaven with its indescribable glories could it be 
truthfully said, " it had been good for that man 
had he never been born." When we begin to trim 
the stones of Ebal, and to build with the trimmed 
stones, the result always is, we have a false theol- 
ogy, and a false worship, and a false life. We 
may admire our own work, but God cries down 
from heaven, "Thou hast polluted mine altar." 
When we begin to make excuses for Judas Iscar- 
iot, and to palliate his crime, and to transfigure 
his life, and represent his ultimate destiny as one 
and the same with that of John and Peter and the 
good apostles, we put a premium upon treason, 
and inevitably multiply Judases in human society. 
Would you like to go out of life a Judas Iscariot ? 
God has put the great and high mountain of Ebal 
between man and evil, and it is a crime against 
God and against the human race to lower that 
mountain even by so little as the removal of a 
single pebble. 

But I must now take up my second point, viz. : 



170 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LAXDS. 

II. The Symbolism of the Altar of Ebal. 

What is the great fact which this altar symbo- 
lizes ? It is this : 

God is to be worshipped for His words and 
deeds of judgment. ''Who shall not fear thee, O 
Lord, and glorify thy name ? for thou only art 
holy ; all nations shall come and worship thee, for 
thy judgments are made manifest." — Rev. xv. 4. 

I know that the human mind is prejudiced 
against the judgments of God. I know that ex- 
ception is taken to the Bible because these are 
found written therein. I know that God is spoken 
against because of these. This is the reason I 
deal with this subject and proclaim that God is to 
be worshipped because of these. This is the reason 
I advocate building an alta-r upon Mount Ebal. 

Let me set in order my reasons for holding that 
God should be worshipped for His words and deeds 
of judgment. 

I. My first reason is: God's dark words and 
deeds of judgment are needed and wholesome 
warnings. 

We value the promises of God and call them 
golden ; we should also value the warnings of God 
and call them golden. The warnings are born of 
God's love just as surely as the promises are. 
Every warning of God is infinite love itself walk- 
ing before man as a guide to point out the hor- 
rible pits into which men are liable to fall, and to 
fence the yawning precipices over which men are 



MOUNT EBAL A VOICE OF GOD. 171 

liable to walk. In a certain sense there is no dif- 
ference between God's warnings and promises. 
Every warning is a veiled promise. It says to 
man, " Avoid this way and I assure you that you 
shall walk safely." Every Scripture warning is 
a lighthouse of God built on the rocks of perdi- 
tion. We know the worth of lighthouses, and at 
what cost they are erected. We know the honor 
given those who design them. The architect of 
the Eddystone lighthouse will always live in his- 
tory. Now what is every lighthouse out on the 
perilous rocks of ocean? It is only a curse of 
Ebal crying amid the dangers of ocean, " Woe to 
the ship that strikes this rock." And yet is there 
not a promise flung out into the darkness in every 
beam of light that flashes from the lighthouse 
lamp ? Does not every ray carry a blessing to the 
storm-tossed mariner? There are voices in the 
flashing beams of the lighthouse lamp, saying, 
" While here there is danger and death, out yon- 
der there is safety, out yonder there is life." 

The service which the curse of God renders 
man will bear investigation. It says that God is 
interested in man and desires his well-being. The 
curse is God's lance by which he means to cut 
away all unsoundness from our moral nature and 
arrest corruption, The curse is God's chart which 
brings before us the rocks and shoals in our course 
over the sea of life. It exposes the nature of sin 
and explodes the theories of falsehood. The curse 



172 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

is the voice of divine mercy crying, " Turn ye, 
turn ye, why will ye die ! " Those who have fallen 
under the judgment of sin can tell us of the value 
of God's warning. Why did Dives in his tor- 
ments ask Abraham to send one from the dead to 
visit his brethren on earth ? This was the reason 
and the only reason : that this messenger might 
cry the warnings and repeat the anathemas. 
Those who have heeded the voice of God can tell 
us of the value of God's warning uttered in the 
curse. Let Nineveh speak. A denunciation of 
God saved that empire city. How accessible God 
has made salvation when man can enter it even 
through the door of a curse as the thousands of 
Nineveh did? It is not the curse of God that 
we should denounce, but it is man's unbelieving 
treatment of the curse. 

My fellow-men, we need the curses of God with 
their warnings, and we shall need them so long 
as the dark realities of human history continue to 
repeat themselves ; and so long as sin continues to 
operate and to produce woes. Is it true that an- 
gels have lost their first estate ? Is it true that 
Eden has become a wreck? Is it true that the 
Dead Sea rolls its sullen waters over the sites 
of the great cities of the plain ? Is it true that 
ancient Jerusalem is a heap of ashes and buried 
strata deep out of sight ? Is it true that the river 
Nile, which makes Egypt golden with a yellow 
harvest, once ran blood under the judgment of 



MOUNT EBAL A VOICE OF GOD. 173 

God ? Is it true that there are sin-wrecked men 
walking the streets of New York carrying in their 
soul a future which is a terror to themselves ? Is 
it true that the wages of sin is death ? If so, then 
we need the curses of God against every form of 
iniquity to warn us in time, and to ward us off 
from the inevitable consequences of sin. There 
ought to be no trifling with sin, nor with the aw- 
ful destiny into which it inducts. 

2. God should be praised for His words and 
deeds of judgment because these appeal to and use 
the element of fear in our nature for the purpose 
of securing our safety. 

There is a popular prejudice against appealing 
to fear. Advanced pulpiteers of to-day deprecate 
it with all their might. They plainly tell us that 
they have no confidence in Christians who are 
frightened to Christ. They declare that we have 
gotten away from the age when men can be driven 
into heaven by terror. That was a characteristic 
of Calvin's age, and Edwards' age, and Whitefield's 
age. They say, " We do not preach the doctrines 
of Edwards or of Whitefield." True. But nei- 
ther do they move their audiences as Edwards 
did ; neither do they preach to the thousands as 
Whitefield did. Their sole cry is : " Move man 
by love." But what of the wrath to come, of 
which Paul speaks when he says, " Knowing the 
terrors of the law we persuade men to flee from 
the wrath which is to come." 



174 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

In neglecting to use the element of fear, these 
teachers lose much. To me salvation is so impor- 
tant that I feel justified in appealing to everything 
in man that I may move him to accept of salva- 
tion. To decry fear is one way of casting reflec- 
tion upon God, who put fear in man upon the day 
of creation, and who appealed to it and used it 
while man was in Eden in the state of innocency. 
The very first recorded words of God to the human 
race were words addressed to fear : " In the day 
thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. " 

Fear is a faculty, a talent, which belongs to man. 
It is one of God's grand gifts. We should be 
miserably constructed if we did not have it. We 
should be pierced by a thousand pains and inju- 
ries which we now escape. Fear plays a wide 
and a useful part in our lives. Look at it in the 
child, which God has put into your hands for safe- 
keeping ! In your child's education there is noth- 
ing to which you appeal so frequently as to its 
fear, and this appeal is the strongest evidence of 
your love. By an appeal to fear you teach it to 
avoid the fire, and the burning lamp, and the blaz- 
ing gas-jet. By an appeal to fear you teach it to 
let the sharp knife alone. By an appeal to fear 
you teach it to keep away from the steep stairs. 
Your child has been born into a world of dangers, 
and your education of it is full of warnings, and 
every one of these is the embodiment of love. 
This being so, what a contradiction of every-day 



MOUNT EBAL A VOICE OF GOD. 1 75 

life is this cry against the appeal of fear when 
preaching the Gospel to lost sinners ? What 
sheer nonsense it is ! There can be no full spiri- 
tual instruction without it. When all eternity 
hangs upon this brief life which we are living, and 
when thousands upon thousands are sinning away 
their day of grace, it would be gross barbarism and 
cruelty not to sound the alarm, and not to arouse 
the fears of the thoughtless. The preacher of to- 
day, like the preacher of old, must stand in the 
midst of humanity and must ring out the same old 
identical words : " Let us therefore fear lest a 
promise being left us of entering into his rest, any 
of you should seem to come short of it. " 

I hold that we are to use love or fear in accord- 
ance with the conditions of the men with whom 
we deal. In Nineveh we should cry : " Yet forty 
days and Nineveh shall be destroyed." In Phila- 
delphia we should cry : " Him that overcometh will 
I make a pillar in the temple of God." That is 
the way and that the method we employ in every- 
day life. 

Let me put two cases before you and ask you 
for your judgment. The first case : In one of our 
New England villages a father was coming up the 
street from his store to his home for dinner. He 
thought he heard the voice of his baby girl calling 
him, " Papa ! Papa ! " Lifting his eyes toward the 
roof of his house, there she was on the eaves of the 
roof, with her hands outstretched toward her fa- 



I7 6 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

ther. She had climbed up on a table and had 
crawled out through the window and along the 
roof. From her high place she spied her father 
walking up the street, and called his name and 
was ready to toss herself into his arms. She 
thought she could do this; she knew no better. 
What a sight to meet a father's eye ! At the 
window appeared the mother as pale as death. 
She held in her hands a tempting orange, and put- 
ting into her voice all the sweetest tones of win- 
ning love she could command she called the child 
by name and kept offering it the tempting bait un- 
til the little one crept to her and was safely folded 
in her arms and kissed. That was love-saving. 
The second case : The granite mills of Fall River 
were in flames. On the roof of the burning house 
there appeared a lone woman calling wildly for 
help. She had fled from the flames below, and 
was safe now, but" her safety was only for a few 
moments. The spectators saw this. They saw 
what she could not see, the flames leaping up the 
rear of the building to the very roof. They saw 
the inevitable crash of roof and all. Spreading a 
strong canvas before the building, and pointing to 
the flames that were sweeping toward the imper- 
illed one, with united voice they cried to her: 
" Leap, quick, or you will miss your only chance ! " 
Under the impulse of fear, which was intensified 
by the earnest cry of the spectators, she did leap 
and was saved. That was fear- saving. The two 



MOUNT EBAL A VOICE OF GOD. 177 

cases are before you ; now, what have you to say ? 
You say : We approve of both. In the first case 
love was the proper motive to sway the child, and 
in the second case fear was the proper motive to 
sway the endangered woman. You would dis- 
count any man's judgment who would prate against 
the course of the crowd in making their appeal to 
the woman. All I have to say is that we ought 
to bring into the sphere of religion the good judg- 
ment which sways us in the affairs of every-day 
life. In every-day life we act on certainties and 
not upon mere conjectures. We act upon what 
we know, and not upon what we do not know. 
We act under the impulse of fear, as well as under 
the impulse of love. We let the honest warning 
sway us as well as the loving promise. Thus it 
is in our secular life ; thus it ought to be in our 
spiritual life. 

I take this position, that whatever is in harmony 
with that which God put into human nature when 
He sent it forth from His hand perfect, whatever 
is calculated to reach and develop it, is right and 
needed. We know that there is an affinity be- 
tween certain medicines and foods and certain or- 
gans and parts of the human body. This makes 
it beneficial and necessary that certain foods and 
certain medicines shall be used. Their use is de- 
manded by the life and health of the body. As it 
is with the body, so is it with the soul. God has 
built it up out of such elements as these, joy, hope, 

12 



17^ NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

love, conscience, fear. Between these elements 
and certain forms of truth there is a strong affinity. 
The promises appeal to hope and feed it, and make 
it the spring of action. The commandments, the 
statements of duty, appeal to the conscience and 
move it. The story of the cross with its wonder- 
ful illustration of sacrifice appeals to love and 
moves man through love. The curses pronounced 
against sin, the threatenings, the warnings, these 
appeal to fear and move man through it. If it be 
right to use the commandments, and the promises, 
and the story of the cross, in order to move man 
to accept of salvation ; if it be right to appeal to 
these because God has put these elements in the 
soul and has given truth in forms that have affini- 
ties for these elements, then it is right also to use 
fear and appeal to it in order to move man, for 
God has put fear into the soul and has given us 
truth in a form adapted to fear. 

I close with a simple illustrative story. In a 
lonely valley in Scotland, at the base of a tall cliff, 
there lies a huge rock, which once fell from the 
face of the precipice. It is worn and seamed by 
the action of time. A shepherd was passing, when 
suddenly the finger of God touched it, and rent 
it from its ancient bed in the mountain-side. 
Touched by the finger of God, it came leaping and 
bounding from pinnacle to pinnacle, and fell where 
it rests to-day. The shepherd who was beneath it 
then is beneath it now, ground to powder. What 



MOUNT EBAL A VOICE OF GOD. i79 

would not a warning have been to that shepherd ! 
A timely warning, appealing to the element of fear 
in him, would have been a messenger of love, sav- 
ing him from his awful death. 

Like that man, we are in awful danger. God 
sees our danger, and feels it as no one else can. 
So in love He has reared Mount Ebal, and from 
its lofty summit He sends through the human 
world His saving cry of warning : " Turn ye ! 
Turn ye ! for why will ye die, O house of Israel ? " 



A HEBREW IDYL, OR A STUDY OF 
THE BOOK OF RUTH. 




A GLEANER FROM THE HARVEST FIELD OF BJAZ. 



VII. 

A Hebrew Idyl, or A Study of the Book 
of Ruth. 

" So Naomi returned, and Ruth the Moabitess, her daughter- 
in-law, with her . . . and they came to Bethlehem in the begin- 
ning of barley harvest." — Ruth i. 22. 

The people of God possess a treasure in the 
little book of Ruth. It is valuable for many rea- 
sons. 

The book is valuable because it gives us one 
important link in the genealogy of Jesus Christ. 
Ruth was one of the three Gentile mothers ad- 
mitted into the line of Christ's humanity. It is 
interesting to trace how the different streams of 
humanity run into the ancestry of Jesus Christ. 
Here the sinful life of Tamar flows through it. 
Yonder the life of Rahab the Jerichoite. Yonder 
the life of Bath-sheba. Here the life of Ruth. 
Different elements of humanity entered into His 
ancestral line; so He is not the Son of one na- 
tion, but the Son of many nations. He had Gen- 
tile mothers and sisters and brothers, as well as 
Jewish mothers and sisters and brothers. He is a 
man of the human race. 

To be made a mother of Jesus, even though a 



1 86 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

far-away mother, was to be crowned with one of 
the highest honors which God could bestow upon 
womanhood. It was to be made a sharer of the 
blessedness which was pronounced upon Mary, the 
blessed among women. Every one of the far- 
away mothers in the Messianic line was as essen- 
tial to the humanity of Christ as was Mary her- 
self. The high honor of being one of the mothers 
of Jesus was the honor which God conferred upon 
Ruth, the Moabitess, as a reward for her devotion 
to one of God's people, and as a result of her 
whole-hearted consecration to God Himself. The 
book of Ruth, first of all, helps to complete the 
links in the genealogical chain of Christ. With- 
out a complete genealogy, it would be impossible 
to prove the Messiahship of Jesus of Nazareth. 
Anything, therefore, that helps to establish this 
is vital and essential and fundamental. 

The book of Ruth is valuable for the moral in- 
fluence which it originates' among men. It sets 
before men that, which is best in human nature 
and makes it attractive. It places before us the 
highest ideals, and brings us under their assimilat- 
ing power. By means of it, Naomi and Ruth 
communicate to us that which is best in them. 
They make us sympathetic. They help us to see 
God's overruling hand in the affairs of every-day 
life. They breathe into us the spirit of gratitude 
amid the bounties of life, and the spirit of courage 
amid the difficulties of life. They make us feel 



A HEBREW IDYL. 1 87 

that the right will always He rewarded. So thrill- 
ing is their experience, so completely does it touch 
us and move us in the best attributes of our na- 
ture, that it is a means of sanctification to us. It 
drives meanness out of us, and substitutes gener- 
osity and large-heartedness and open-handedness. 
It educates us in appreciating and admiring the 
tender, and the noble, and the sublime, .and the 
God-like. Anything that stirs our moral nature 
to its depths, and makes us ashamed of our selfish- 
ness, and grufTness, and cruelty of disposition; 
anything that begets within us wishes for the 
higher traits of character, and calls out purposes 
of sacrifice for God and for others ; anything that 
originates within us an iron resolution to give rein 
to that which is best in us is of incomparable 
worth, and should be esteemed a divine blessing. 
The little book of Ruth does this. It inspires our 
daughters to be as Naomi and Ruth, grand women ; 
and it inspires our sons to be as Boaz, men every 
inch of them, frank and chaste and industrious; 
considerate as employers, honest in business, care- 
ful of the rights of others ; above taking advantage 
of the ignorant ; ardent as lovers, and faithful as 
husbands. 

The book has a literary value. It is a gem in 
literature. If we could trace back all the after 
gems which genius has given to the world and 
which have inspired the lives of men, we should 
doubtless discover that some influence begotten 



1 88 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

by this early gem originated them, either directly 
or indirectly. As a gem, there is no artistic elab- 
oration in its style. There is no effort at fine 
writing ; but it is fine writing. The story writes 
itself. No whip is laid to the imagination to im- 
part gleam and lustre to it. The composition is 
clear and simple and transparent. Its setting, too, 
in the canon of Scripture is in its favor. Its lo- 
cation heightens it by means of contrast, just as the 
lowering black thunder-storm sweeping up the ho- 
rizon in the west sets off by contrast the summit 
of the mountain in the east which is all on fire 
with the light of the sun. "To one who reads 
the Bible in course, the book of Ruth comes like 
a sudden yet sweet surprise. The sterner feel- 
ings of his nature have been roused by the turbu- 
lent scenes of the book of Judges. Fierce battles, 
private murders, and terrific slaughters have fol- 
lowed each other in rapid succession. One of the 
last scenes that he dwelt upon was the violent 
death of an unchaste woman, whose dismembered 
body was sent in bleeding fragments throughout 
the land, like the fiery cross of Scotland to call 
men to arms. This was followed by the slaughter 
of a hundred thousand men. From such a succes- 
sion of horrors, the reader comes upon the simple 
and gentle story of Ruth, like one who emerges 
from an Alpine gorge black with thunder clouds 
and filled with the roar of mad torrents, upon a 
little green pasturage slumbering in the embrace 



A HEBREW IDYL. 189 

of the hills, where the sun shines, and the bells 
of the flock tinkle, and the brook sings its song." 

The book has an historic value. It holds up a 
light in the midst of the nation of Israel in the 
times of the Judges. It brings out one aspect of 
the times, viz. : the religious feeling. For, not- 
withstanding the public corruption in certain of 
the tribes, there was a religious feeling pervading 
the nation as a body politic. Like the order of 
the Nazarite, and the song of Deborah, and the 
prayer of Hannah, it reveals the reign of religion 
in the homes of the people. It leads us to this 
discovery, which no Bible student should overlook 
in the study of the book of the Judges, viz, : The 
book of Judges, in order to teach the bitterness 
of sin, sets forth with great fulness the evils and 
servitude which prevailed in different sections of 
Israel, but it passes over with a simple mention 
the periods of prosperity and fidelity during the 
times of the Judges ; yet these periods were three 
times as long as the periods of evil and servitude. 
During at least three-fourths of the two hundred 
years and more covered by the period of the 
Judges, the vast majority of homes in Israel were 
God-fearing homes. They were like the home 
introduced by the book of Ruth. Elimelech and 
Boaz were types of the larger part of the manhood 
of the nation, and Naomi was a type of the larger 
part of the womanhood of the nation. 

In this Hebrew home we see a representation 



19° NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

of every virtue required in the domestic and social 
life of man. It redounds to the glory of the God 
of Israel, that in the freedom in which His people 
were living during the period of the Judges, there 
was so much chastity, and justice, and love, and 
propriety, and etiquette. " Who were Naomi and 
Ruth and Boaz ? They were peasants. Yet how 
charming their eloquence, how pleasing their man- 
ners, and how full of wisdom and judgment they 
are ! " 

In opening the contents of the book of Ruth, 
we will present : 

I. The Story of the Book. 

The story is easily told. It is this : In the 
days of the Judges there was a severe famine in 
Judea. It was keenly felt in thousands of homes, 
but in one especially — the home of Elimelech. 
The thought came to him to flee from want by 
moving over the blue mountains, which he could 
see in the far distance, to the plains beyond, in 
the land of Moab. His thought became a pur- 
pose, and his purpose became an act. He found 
himself in Moab, with Naomi, his wife, and Mah- 
lon and Chilion, his sons. Ten years fled by; but 
they were years crowded with sad changes. Only 
the widowed Naomi lived through them. First 
her husband died, and then her two sons, who had 
married Moabitish maidens. Stricken by a treble 



A HEBREW IDYL. 191 

sorrow, she was left a stranger in a strange land. 
She was one of those who could say to God, " All 
Thy waves and all Thy billows have gone over 
me." 

Naomi in Moab had not forgotten Palestine; 
she carried her fatherland and her early home in 
her heart. In her sorrow she determined to go 
back to these, and when she communicated her pur- 
pose to Orpah and Ruth, the widows of her la- 
mented sons, they determined to go with her. 
These three widows were bound together by pe- 
culiar bonds. They had bent over the same sick- 
bed, and had moved in the same funeral proces- 
sion, and had wept over the same grave. 

On the way to Judea, Naomi, overpowered with 
the thought that she was leading these two young 
women away from home and into poverty, stopped 
and urged them to return to their ancestors. It 
would be a lonely journey without them, but how 
could she ask them to share her dark future ? She 
pictured for them a new and a possible home in 
Moab, and prayed, " The Lord grant you that ye 
may find rest each of you in the home of her hus- 
band." What a beautiful ideal she had of home ! 
It is only a wanderer who can talk or write ideally 
about home, sweet home. Home according to her 
ideal is a rest. There is something radically wrong 
in the home which is not a rest. Home is a rest ; 
a rest for the husband, a rest for the wife, a rest 
for the children. 



I9 2 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

The proposal of Naomi was a test to Orpah and 
Ruth. She dealt with her daughters-in-law as 
Christ dealt with the man who hastily declared, 
" Lord, I will follow thee whithersoever thou 
goest." Jesus turned to him and said, " The foxes 
have holes, the birds of the air have nests, but the 
son of man hath not where to lay his head." 
Every man who becomes a Christian is tried and 
tempted in some such way. He comes to a piv- 
otal moment in his life, and upon it everything in 
the future depends. In this pivotal moment he 
is called upon to balance the reasons for the rejec- 
tion of the world and for the acceptance of Christ, 
for leaving Moab and going to Canaan. God tests 
us to see if we ring true, or if we ring hollow. 
Can you stand the test of God, O immortal soul ? 

Orpah failed to stand the test. Like the citi- 
zen from the City of Destruction, who accompan- 
ied Christian part way to the Celestial city, she 
turned back with regrets and tears. 

Ruth stood the test ; and this is the fact which 
the book makes prominent. It sets before us her 
devotion and her reward. The more she was urged 
to leave, the more she clung. Her devotion, under 
the test, grew until it broke forth into a passionate 
and soul-stirring resolution, which she sealed with 
a solemn and self-imposed oath. In her resolu- 
tion she made five distinct choices, and these five 
distinct choices we all make when we truly be- 
come Christians. These choices are : the Chris- 



A HEBREW IDYL. 193 

tian's God, the Christian's pathway, the Chris- 
tian's companions, the Christian's habitation, and 
the Christian's death. 

When Naomi heard Ruth's resolution, she 
ceased to urge her to return to Moab ; " And so 
they two went, until they came to Bethlehem." 

Entering Bethlehem was a trying scene to 
Naomi. The past rushed in upon her and over- 
whelmed her. Old friends gathered around her 
by the score and scanned her face, and in surprise 
at the changes which had come over her, asked, 
" Is this Naomi ? " Those who had known her as 
a bride, and then as a mother, scarce knew her now 
as a widow. She was so bent and wrinkled and 
gray. It was when she read the change which 
had come over her, by reading the looks of sur- 
prise and pity on the countenances of her early 
associates, that she said, " Call me not Naomi, i.e., 
the pleasantness of the Lord, but call me Mara, 
i.e., Bitterness; for the Lord hath dealt bitterly 
with me. I have changed into another person; 
call me therefore by another name." It is a good 
thing sometimes to go back to our associates of 
early days, that we may be made to feel the changes 
that have come upon us. We can see the differ- 
ence between our present and former selves, in their 
unconcealed surprises. If we have grown better, 
we will recognize that in their looks of admira- 
tion ; if we have grown worse we will be made to 
feel that by their looks of disappointment. 
13 



194 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LA .YDS. 

It was fortunate that these widows reached 
Bethlehem during barley harvest. According to 
the law of the land, they had the privilege of glean- 
ing in the fields. Ruth, ready-handed and willing- 
hearted, at once went forth to glean, and God 
guided her to fields where she not only succeeded 
in securing some of the grain of the fields, but 
where she succeeded in securing the owner of the 
fields. By divine guidance, she entered both the 
field and the heart of Boaz. The first day of 
gleaning was a grand success. It rejoiced both 
Ruth and Naomi. When the story of the day was 
told, Naomi recognized in Boaz an old kinsman. 
The success of the first day was again and again 
repeated. Ruth and Boaz met and talked, and 
met and talked, and the shuttle of respectful feel- 
ing shot and reshot between them, and wove the 
web of love. 

In the mean while, the brain of Naomi was not 
sleeping. She studied both Ruth and Boaz, and 
she knew exactly how heart responded to heart. 
There is an immense amount of Naomi in the 
book. She is so largely in it that the book might 
with propriety be called the " Book of Naomi." 
Naomi knew that Boaz was a backward man ; for 
if he had not been backward, the world would not 
have found him at his time of life a man without 
a wife. Reading his heart, and pitying his back- 
wardness, she inaugurated a bold plan to usher in 
his marriage day. As a kinsman, the law of the 



A HEBREW IDYL. 1 95 

Hebrews opened a direct way for him to enter 
into marriage with Ruth, and the plan of Naomi 
was to set the law at work. 

The story hastens to a conclusion. The law 
worked well. The mother-in-law saw this one 
day, when Ruth returned from a walk with Boaz 
with the whole story written on her face. As she 
came up to her, Naomi greeted her with the ques- 
tion, "Who art thou, my daughter? " And Ruth 
answered her in accordance with the spirit of her 
question, and told her who she was likely to be. 
In the original Hebrew there is wit in the ques- 
tion not seen in our English translation. " Who 
art thou, my daughter? " means, "Art thou Mis- 
tress Ruth Mahlon," or "Art thou Mistress Ruth 
Boaz ? " Naomi was an old lady, but she was 
keen and wide awake. She was a woman of strong 
points all around. 

The book closes with Boaz making Ruth his 
wife, and with the whole family rejoicing over the 
child Obed. Around this child all centre : Na- 
omi, the grandmother; Boaz, the father; Ruth, 
the mother. Even the neighbors gather to the 
rejoicing, and with Naomi and Ruth bless the 
Lord that the day of storm closes with a sunset 
of brilliant glory. 

With the story of the book before us, we are 
ready to take up : 



I9 6 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 



II. The Theme Which the Story Illustrates. 

The story illustrates this theme : The value and 
mission of our human loves : or our earthly rela- 
tionships a medium of mutual helpfulness. There 
are three points presented by the book illustrating 
this theme : 

i. Life may be made beautiful and filled with 
comfort and influence by loving relationships. 
The history of human loves in this book estab- 
lishes this point. Its friendships have taken hold 
of the heart of the world, and have repeated them- 
selves in "varied forms in far-away lands. The 
world is always better for those who love, and who 
leave behind them deeds and memories of love. 
The friendship between Ruth and Naomi is valu- 
able in that it takes up the lowest relationship of 
life, and reveals how mutually helpful love makes 
it, and what a sphere it can open for the play of 
love. What relationship is esteemed less than that 
of mother-in-law ? In modern life it is the subject 
of criticism and wit and satire. It has called out 
the bitterest and most unkind of all caricatures. 
The friendship between Naomi and Ruth exhibits 
the opportunity which even this relationship af- 
fords for building up a beautiful character and for 
rendering true service to immortal souls. 

Look narrowly at what this friendship gave the 
world. It gave the world two beautiful charac- 



A HEBREW IDYL. 197 

ters. We do not know which to admire most — 
Naomi or Ruth; the model mother in-law or the 
dutiful daughter-in-law. I suppose mothers-in- 
law admire Ruth, and daughters-in-law admire 
Naomi. There is no question about the worth of 
Ruth. But let us not forget that it was Naomi 
who made Ruth. If Naomi had not been what 
she was, Ruth would not have been what she was. 
Both of the daughters-in-law loved her; so she 
must have been lovable. Orpah could not leave 
her without many tears and kisses, and Ruth could 
not leave her at all. Ruth's devotion is a beauti- 
ful testimony to Naomi's fidelity and unselfish- 
ness. A testimony like this all mothers-in-law 
should strive to have. The Naomi of to-day may 
and should have her Ruth. Give me a Naomi 
who will talk her daughter-in-law up until the 
community is filled with her praises ; give me a 
Naomi who deals in prayers for her daughter-in- 
law ; give me a Naomi who takes an interest in 
her daughter-in-law's home and comfort and pros- 
perity; give me a Naom_ who is so self- forgetful 
and condescending that she will even take care of 
her daughter-in-law's little Obed — and I will point 
you to a Ruth by her side full of devotion and of 
love. Age gives the mother-in-law the right to 
lead in the exercise of love and sacrifice and good 
feeling. 

The book presents a second point, viz. : 

2. Loving relationships afford a sphere in which 



19$ NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

to do religious work. Naomi, whose character was 
rooted in religion, did effective work for God. She 
brought Ruth into the covenant of salvation. Ruth 
knew nothing of Jehovah before she met Naomi ; 
she was her spiritual mother. Through Naomi 
the religion of God reached her heart. It was love 
in the relationship that made religion a power and 
gave force to Naomi's words. It is love back of 
words that always makes them a power. Even the 
words of a child are powerful when they are ad- 
dressed to one who loves and who is related to it. 
Let me illustrate. One of England's popular 
lecturers was speaking on "Personal Influence." 
Pointing to a little girl in her father's arms, he 
said, " Every one has an influence ; even that 
child is no exception." "That's true! " cried the 
father. At the close of the evening, he went to 
the lecturer and apologized for the interruption. 
" I could not help speaking, sir. I was a drunk- 
ard once, and my little child saved me. I took 
her with me once to the drink-hall, and, hearing a 
noise within, she pleaded with me : ' Father, do 
not go in.' I told her to hold her peace. ' Please, 
father, do not go in.' ' Hold your peace, I say ! ' 
Presently I felt a hot tear from the child's eye 
fall upon my cheek. I could not go a step far- 
ther, .sir. I turned around and went home, and 
I have not touched the glass since. When you 
said that the child had an influence, I could not 
help speaking aloud, ' That's true.' ' The story 



A HEBREW IDYL. *99 

is simple, but it illustrates our point, viz. : Rela- 
tionship gives power to personal influence, and 
makes the Christian an effective worker. What 
was it that made the request and tear of that child 
so powerful? Were they powerful because the 
child was a stranger? The very opposite. That 
child belonged to that father. Nature had bound 
it to him by a thousand invisible bonds, until the 
union between him and it was so intimate that 
its fears sent a shudder through his frame, and its 
desire moved his intellect and conscience and af- 
fection toward sobriety. 

How did Naomi bring her religion to Ruth ? 
She did not carry in her hand the roll of the He- 
brew law and prophets ; she did what was better 
— she carried it in her character. The spirit of 
the holy Book was in her heart, and she taught by 
her life. No doubt she told the stories of Israel's 
wonderful history, and stated and explained the 
doctrines of her religion ; but it was her life that 
made her God and her people attractive. It was 
her life that led Ruth to say, " Thy people shall 
be my people, and thy God my God." Striking 
as this illustration given us by the book of Ruth 
is, there are many parallels in God's word showing 
the sphere which relationships open for effective 
religious work. There is the story of Moses and 
Hobab, his brother-in-law. Moses said to him, 
"Come thou with us, and we will do thee good; 
for the Lord hath spoken good concerning Israel." 



200 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

Hobab responded to the invitation, and dwelt 
among the blessings. There is the story of An- 
drew bringing his brother Peter to Jesus. It is a 
notable fact that many of the apostles were related 
by the ties of nature, and were bound together by 
human loves. It is a notable fact also that the 
Church of Christ to-day is made up of the children 
of believers and of those who have been born in 
Christian households. It is a notable fact that 
many a man is held to faith in the Christian relig- 
ion simply by the holy character of a godly parent 
or of a godly friend. Holy characters are the 
heavenly clusters from the heavenly vines, which 
make it possible for us to believe in the heavenly 
Canaan. 

One point more with reference to the theme of 
the book : 

3. Religion gives greater love and permanency 
to our relationships. Our religion makes our 
friendships and loves as eternal as itself. Love, 
which is the soul of friendship, is the fruit of 
religion. " By this shall ye know that ye are my 
disciples: if ye love one another." "Beloved, let 
us love one another ; for love is of God, and every 
one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God." 
God did not come between Naomi and Ruth as a 
barrier to separate them ; their friendship reached 
its perfection only when Ruth said, " Thy God 
shall be my God." Religion links us together 
more firmly, because it brings us into a new com- 



A HEBREW IDYL. 201 

munity of interests, and because it makes each in- 
terest a uniting bond. Each doctrine is a bond. 
Each promise is a bond. Each similar experience 
is a bond. We who are in the Christian faith are 
bound together by a graduated scale of bonds, until 
we reach the perfection of unity in the bond of 
the Spirit. 

When we form our friendships under the sanc- 
tion of religion, we choose our companions for eter- 
nity. Human love with religion is a grace of 
eternity. It is an immortal link, as strong in the 
heavenly future as it is in the earthly present. In 
heaven we do not lose sight of our friends. No. 
Transformed into the glorious image of God, we 
shall love them all the more because they are God- 
like. In heaven we do not lose our identity or 
our personality. No. Moses and Elijah are Moses 
and Elijah still. Abraham and Lazarus are Abra- 
ham and Lazarus still. In heaven we do not lose 
our memories or our intellects. No. We shall 
need these in order that we may recognize God 
and recall the blessings of redemption. If we 
have these, we can recognize our friends who on 
earth shared with us the blessings of redemption. 
In heaven human communion is not lost nor de- 
stroyed. No. Lazarus in Abraham's bosom shows 
beyond peradventure that there are human loves 
there. " They shall come from the east and from 
the west, and from the north and from the south, 
and shall sit down with Abraham and Isaac and 



202 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

Jacob in the kingdom of heaven." We are truly- 
related only when we can say to one another, 
" Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my 
God." 

A Caution and an Exhortation. 

I have been speaking of the value of religious 
friendships, and of the way in which God blesses 
men through their godly friends. Let me, in clos- 
ing, utter a simple caution and a simple exhorta- 
tion. 

i . A caution : Do not rest under the delusion 
that God in some way will have mercy upon you 
in the last day, despite your earthly life, because 
of the interest which He has in your friends. This 
book gives no hint that there was hope for Orpah, 
who went back to her heathen life. God is merci- 
ful, yes ; but God is just also, and He cannot over- 
ride His justice. His justice requires Him to deal 
with every man personally. I think I hear the 
human heart say, " God, who honors human rela- 
tionships and loves by using them as figures of the 
relationships between Him and His people, cannot 
in the day of judgment break up the families of 
His own making. A separation would wrench the 
heart of the saved as well as the heart of the lost." 
That thought does not trouble me. I believe, 
with the author of " Gates Ajar," that if the Sa- 
vior, who has done so much for man, who has 
loved him with an infinite love, can say, " De- 



A HEBREW IDYL. 203 

part ! " His people, whose love is only finite at 
its best, can acquiesce in the sentence of Him who 
loves infinitely. 

2. An exhortation : Yield to the persuasion of 
your godly friends. God is seeking to win you 
to Himself through them. God sent Naomi all 
the way to Moab to win Ruth. I want to enforce 
this practical exhortation by an illustration. My 
illustration is drawn from the story upon which 
Thomas Moore, the Irish poet, has founded his Lalla 
Rookh. A prince was betrothed, according to the 
customs of his times, to a princess of a distant 
kingdom whom he had never seen. As the mar- 
riage day drew near, he sent an escort to bring his 
bride. Among the escort sent to while away the 
tedium of the journey, there was one noted above 
all the rest. He was gifted in all things, and 
proved a delightful charmer. The princess felt his 
power, and was drawn to him. Ere she was aware 
of it, she awoke to the fact that he had won her 
heart. Heroically she fought her affections, and 
sought to chain them and keep them true to the 
prince whom she was soon to meet as her hus- 
band. Her pledge had been given him, and her 
honor for truth was on trial. It was a fearful in- 
ner conflict through which she passed; but she 
proved true. When the journey was over, and 
when the marriage day had fully come, she went 
to the altar feeling that she was sacrificing her 
very life to her promise. But what a glad sur- 



204 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

prise it was, and how her heart bounded with joy, 
when, on being introduced to the prince, she dis- 
covered that it was he who had towered in the es- 
cort, and in disguise had won her heart. O ye 
friends living in another land from the God-land, 
God desires you for Himself. He has sent you 
this word : " I have betrothed you to Myself." In 
the person of your godly friends and acquaintances, 
He has sent you an escort to lead you to His pal- 
ace. Trust them, yield yourselves to them, give 
them the best love of your heart. Do not be 
afraid of robbing Christ by loving them and yield- 
ing to them. Let your desires go out to them, 
and let your admiration delight itself in their 
habits and in their characters. When the mar- 
riage day comes, on which you shall be inducted 
into the mansions as the bride of Christ, you will 
find that the principles and dispositions and habits 
and ways which they embodied, and which won 
your heart, were all from God. You will find that 
Christ Himself was in them, acting in them, and 
looking out at you through tnem. You will find 
that it was the Christ in them whom you loved. 
He it was who wooed you and won you, though 
you recognized Him not. 

Ye who are the subjects of friendly persuasion 
and solicitude by the Naomis of God, act the part 
of the beautiful and immortal Ruth. Covenant 
with God's people. Cast in your lot with theirs. 
Start with them for Canaan, the land of promise. 



A HEBREW IDYL. 205 

Say to them, "Thy people shall be my people." 
When you have done this, by and by you will take 
the final step, which carries heaven and eternal 
life in it, and will say, " Thy God shall be my 
God." All who humbly begin with the people of 
God end with God and Christ ; for every holy con- 
sistent life, lived by the multitudes of God's Nao- 
mis, is a spiritual bridge over which immortal souls 
pass to Christ. 



THE HOSANNA-DAY IN THE LIFE OF 
JESUS CHRIST. 



VIII. 

The Hosanna-Day in the Life of Jesus 
Christ. 

"And the multitudes that went before, and that followed, 
cried, saying : ' Hosanna to the son of David ; blessed is he that 
cometh in the name of the Lord ; Hosanna in the highest! ' " — 
Matt. xxi. 9. 

The week upon which we enter to-day is known 
in the calendar of Christendom as Passion Week. 
Passion Week is that week in the biography of 
Jesus which ends with the cross and the silent 
tomb. It is the fullest week of all time. It is 
crowded to overflowing. Upon the part of Jesus 
it is crowded with golden utterances and magni- 
ficent deeds and infinite sacrifices. Upon the part 
of man it is crowded with wicked plottings, and 
denials, and betrayals, and treasons, and false 
oaths, and diabolical deeds. It shows divinity at 
its best ; and it shows humanity at its worst. 

But it is not with the full week that we wish 
to deal this morning. We wish to deal only with 
the first day of Passion Week. The first day of 
Passion Week is called Palm Sunday. This is the 
day which the Church is observing, and we wish 
to join the Church in its observance. 



2 12 _Y£jr EPISTLES FROM OLD LAXDS. 

To celebrate any da}- that is worthy of a cele- 
bration is a grand and an ennobling and a profit- 
able thing. It is humanity bowing before some 
thrilling thought, some inspiring fact, some glori- 
ous doctrine, which has found visibility in life, a 
place in history, or which has ensphered itself in 
some beneficent institution. Now, no soul can do 
homage to a grand thought, or fact, or doctrine, or 
institution without being inspired and elevated 
and made grand itself. Association with the grand 
always means assimilation to the grand. Espe- 
cially is this so when the soul deals with Christ. 
No man can honor Christ or celebrate any great 
fact in His life without receiving from Christ an 
impulse that will make him Christ-like. There 
were great events in His life which made the 
days upon which they occurred memorable, and 
every one of these days may be kept with soul 
profit. There was the day of His birth, with its 
singing angels, and shekinah light, and new star ; 
there was the day of His crucifixion, with its 
darkened heavens and quaking earth and rent 
veil; there was the day of His resurrection, with 
its empty tomb, and its thrilling rumors, and its 
meeting with the living Christ Himself. And 
here in this Scripture is the great hosanna-dav 
with its multitudes all on fire with enthusiasm, 
and its typal events which are pictures of great 
things to come. Xo one can enter into the spirit 
of these days without being blest Although Pas- 



THE HOSA NMA -DA Y. 213 

sion Week closes with a black cloud, it opens with 
a sunburst. It is with the sunburst that we have 
to deal at present. It began with a coronation of 
the Christ; a coronation which was a foregleam 
of a better and a grander coronation slumbering 
in the future. 

Let us tell to our souls the story of that day, 
and then draw from the story its hosanna lessons. 

The entrance of Jesus into the holy city amid 
the shouts of multitudes and the waving of palm 
branches and the songs of the children and the 
hosannas of the multitudes was not an unexpected 
thing. It was not a sudden occurrence. It was 
a result. Events had been working toward this 
day for months. Prophecy foretold it. Christ 
fore-knew it. The people were getting ready for 
it. They were growing in their feelings toward 
it. Behold how the people approach it in feel- 
ing ! They talk to one another about the young 
man of Nazareth. They canvass His wonderful 
discourses. They examine His miracles. They 
search His holy life. The result is, they say to 
one another, "The young man is a prophet." 
And their hearts thrill with the thought that the 
long maintained silence which God has kept has 
been broken once more, and there is some one at 
last to speak for God as Samuel spake, and as Eli- 
jah spake, and as Isaiah spake, and as Jeremiah 
spake, and as Malachi spake. As they see more 
of Jesus, and hear more from Him, their estimate 



214 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

of Him advances. Looking one another straight 
in the eyes, they put to one another this bold 
question : " When the Messiah comes will he or 
can he do greater works than these which we see 
the young prophet do?" They had seen Jesus 
heal the sick, cleanse the leper, give sight to the 
blind, and power to walk to the lame, and do other 
such wonderful things. At last Jesus raised the 
very dead, and then at once the question about 
His Messiahship changes into a direct assertion. 
Instead of asking, " Is not this the Messiah ? " 
they assert " This is the Messiah." Now, it is only 
a single step from this assertion " Jesus of Naza- 
reth is the Messiah" to the shout " Hosanna to 
the Son of David." The people were ready for 
this hosanna-day, and that is the reason this ho- 
sanna- day came. 

Not only were the people ready, Jesus Himself 
was ready for it. This was a great step. Hith- 
erto He discountenanced everything that looked 
like a hosanna- scene, -and the reason was "the 
time had not yet come." The prior things in 
God's programme had to be done; the disciples 
had to be instructed, the people had to be got 
ready. Now he inaugurates the day Himself. 
He sends the two disciples for the colt, and when 
it is brought, He mounts it of His own free will. 
When the multitudes proclaim Him the Messiah, 
He publicly accepts the proclamation. Jesus 
meant now to make a public offer of Himself to 



THE HOSANNA-DAY. 215 

Jerusalem as king and Messiah, and He did. This 
was Jerusalem's great day. This was Jerusalem's 
great offer. Had it accepted the offer, it might 
have continued unto this day the glory city of the 
world. This was the day to which Haggai pointed 
when he spoke of the "greater glory which would 
come to the temple." This was the red-lettered 
day spoken of by Zechariah five hundred years be- 
fore. It is not necessary to detail the events of 
the day. They are all before us on the historic 
page — the procuring of the colt, the carpeting of 
the highway with the garments of the people, the 
waving of the palm branches, the singing of the 
doxology, the finale of the grand Hebrew Hallel, 
the meeting of the two companies, the one carry- 
ing Jesus to the city, the other coming out from 
the city to meet Jesus; the stir which the proces- 
sion made in Jerusalem ; the question which every 
one asked, " Who is this ? " the scowl on the faces 
of the foes of the Master — these details are all 
here and require no reproduction. We need only 
point out this fact : All these things were in ac- 
cordance with the mind of Christ, and received His 
approbation. 

Did He not know what they would result in ? 
He did. He saw Calvary in the scowl of these 
frowning rulers. Taking this step was Caesar 
crossing the Rubicon. You know the story of the 
Rubicon. The Rubicon was a little rivulet which 
flowed between the boundary of Gaul and Italy. 



216 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

Plutarch tells us that Julius Caesar once led his 
army up to the margin of that rivulet, and paused 
there and debated, " Shall I cross it ? I can cross 
it. To cross it is a very little act, but it is big 
with significance. To cross it is an act of hos- 
tility. It means a declaration of war. Shall I 
cross it ? " He did cross it, and war came, quick 
and fierce. If Jesus Christ permit honor publicly 
to be given Him, and if He allow Himself pub- 
licly to be escorted as King into Jerusalem, then 
there is no help for coming events. 

The inauguration of this " hosanna-day " is 
Caesar crossing the Rubicon. Jesus knew that. 
It meant Calvary. Yes. But everything He did 
meant Calvary. To go to Calvary was what brought 
Him into the world. Jesus without Calvary would 
be Jesus stripped of all His power to save; it 
would be Jesus without a single " hosanna. " He 
Himself inaugurated Palm Sunday, because Palm 
Sunday inaugurated that week of time which 
brought the cross. He was hastening on to the 
cross, for the cross was His goal. It was by the 
cross that He was to purchase redemption. He 
knew that the cross was due that very week. 

Two things arrest our attention in the scenes of 
this day. The first is the willingness with which 
the disciples obeyed Christ, and the second is the 
fact that the children were among those who made 
the streets of Jerusalem and the walls of the tem- 
ple ring with His praises. 



THE HOSANNA-DAY. 217 

It was lowly work which Jesus required these 
two disciples to do when He sent them to bring 
the colt. Leading an ass along the public high- 
way ! There are but very few in this community 
who would do that. But these two disciples did 
it, and they did it willingly. In doing that they 
helped to fulfil one of the prophecies which estab- 
lished the Messiahship of their Master. Had they 
refused to do that, they would have missed one of 
the grand opportunities of their life. Are you 
willing to humble yourself for Jesus Christ, and 
to do humble things in His service? If not, you 
are retarding the progress of His kingdom, and 
are beating back the hosannas which are rising to 
the lips of men. When men everywhere become 
willing to sacrifice their pride and to do the humble 
works which must be done in the cause of Christ, 
then will Christianity have a universal hosanna 
time. 

One of the most interesting things in the scenes 
of Palm Sunday was the singing of the children. 
They took up the refrain. They helped to make 
the triumphal entry of Christ into Jerusalem a suc- 
cess. The Pharisees asked Jesus to silence them, 
but He refused. He said that their singing was 
the fulfilment of the prophecy. He said it was 
the perfection of praise. This was the highest 
encomium He ever passed upon any worship of 
earth. To Him the children's voices made the 
sweetest music He had heard since He left the 



2i8 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

splendors of heaven and the songs of the cheru- 
bim and seraphim. Christ wants childhood. The 
children should ever be in the temple praising 
God. The praise of the great congregation is 
lacking if the voices of the children are not heard, 
and that is one of the lessons of this hosanna-day. 
The song of the Christian congregation should be 
like the ringing of an anthem into the air as an- 
thems are rung out into air by the bells in the 
tower of the cathedral of Antwerp. In the shower 
of bell notes that fall from the vast spire of that 
cathedral are all kinds of notes. There are the 
deep great notes of the large bells which make 
the anthem roll through the atmosphere with the 
intonations of the thunder. But beside these great, 
sonorous notes there are the notes of the little 
bells pealing out the very same anthem on a 
higher key. There are notes which are fine and 
sweet; notes as small as a bird's warble. They 
fill the air with crisp tinklings, which, however, 
are as distinct as the louder notes of the great 
bells. All have their individuality, and all are 
needed to make perfect the anthem which en- 
chains the listener. In the great Christian Church, 
Christ wants to hear the song of redemption sung 
by the mature and deep voices of the men and 
women ; but He wants at the same time to hear 
the higher-keyed voices of the boys and girls. It 
takes all hearts and all voices to make the praise 
of the great congregation complete. Church of 



THE HOSA NNA -DA Y. 219 

God, learn to look upon the children as Jesus 
looked upon them. Take them in your arms as 
He took them in His arms. Recognize their place 
in praise as He recognized their place in praise. 
See in them the future as He saw in them the fu- 
ture. Stand forth as the defender of their rights 
as He stood forth the defender of their rights. Be 
to them ever a source of blessing, as He was to 
them ever a source of blessing. 

But let me now speak of the day which we 
celebrate and from which we are seeking lessons 
in things that pertain to the kingdom of Jesus 
Christ. I wish this morning to have you look at 
this " hosanna-day " under three aspects, and to see 
three useful things in it. 

In the first place this day is 

1. A fulfilment of prophecy and thus a great 
evidential force in proving the Messiahship of 
Jesus of Nazareth. 

When the story of this day is told by the sacred 
penman, these words are written, " All this was 
done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken 
by the prophets." To me there are no words in 
all Gospel history that are more significant than 
these. I am impressed by this fact also that they 
occur again and again on the Gospel page. They 
are the Gospel refrain. 

My fellow-men, we must never lose sight of the 
value of this claim for Jesus Christ : He is the 
Messiah of prophecy. It is the foundation upon 



220 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

which rests the superstructure of Christology. It 
held the largest place in the apostolic preaching. 
The apostles had the same text for almost every 
sermon, viz. : " Jesus of Nazareth is the promised 
Messiah." Their sermons consisted in this, illus- 
trating and proving the fact by Comparing Christ's 
life with prophecy, and prophecy with Christ's 
life. They felt that when they had proved the 
identity of Jesus of Nazareth with the Messiah 
of prophecy, they had secured all the prophets, 
with all their prestige and power, for the defence 
of Christianity. They felt, too, that when they 
had proved this they had demonstrated that Jesus 
of Nazareth was the most wonderful personage of 
the world. And so they had. 

If you would see what a personage the predicted 
Messiah was, look at the influence which He ex- 
erted in the Hebrew nation. The thought of His 
coming begat those pure and holy songs of the 
soul which the people delighted to sing — songs 
which elevated and transfigured the whole of life. 
His sublime character, which was painted in ad- 
vance, and which glowed on the prophetic page, 
acted as an inspiration in the minds of the purest 
citizens, and was taken by them as a model. Thus 
the life of Jesus Christ before it was actually lived, 
was the greatest moulding power in the world of 
humanity. For example, Moses built his grand 
life up under the inspiration of the predicted Mes- 
siah. " He esteemed the reproach of Christ greater 



THE HO SA NNA -DA Y. 221 

riches than all the treasures of Egypt." Is Jesus 
of Nazareth this predicted personage ? Then you 
can see how wonderful a personage Jesus of Naza- 
reth is. Brethren, we do not magnify as we should 
the Messiah of prophecy; we do not ponder as 
we should the great things predicted of Him; 
hence for this reason, when we are told that Jesus 
of Nazareth is the Messiah of prophecy, the declara- 
tion does not thrill us as it is possible for it to do. 

The predicted Messiah is a clean-cut personage. 
There is no uncertainty about Him nor about His 
life. His career is marked out in a detailed pro- 
gramme. Many of His utterances are anticipated 
and recorded. In prophecy His birthplace is 
named, His virgin mother described, His great 
deeds decreed, His treatment from men foretold, 
His enemies named, His death and burial nar- 
rated, His resurrection from the dead foretold, and 
the marvellous progress of His cause promised. 

I tell you, that in the greatest work of all time, 
God protected Himself and His people from all 
imposture. He made it absolutely impossible to 
counterfeit the Messiah. Take one thing as an 
illustration; take the cross which God put into 
the Messianic life ! The coming Messiah must be 
a suffering Messiah. God guarded the Messiah- 
ship against imposture by building an unscalable 
mountain of agony around it. Impostors are not 
fond of being mocked, of having their body cut 
with a scourge, of being nailed to a cross. The 



222 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

true Christ must go through all this. He must 
utter the awful cry of abandonment. He must 
shriek, "I thirst." He must also, amid the ago- 
nies of crucifixion, die with these calm words upon 
His lips, " Father, into thy hands I commit my 
spirit." Could any impostor do all this? The 
question is idiotic. It is a blow that makes hu- 
man reason stagger. No impostor could do all 
this if he would ; no impostor would do all this if 
he could. The way prophecy was fulfilled in Jesus 
of Nazareth is perfectly marvellous. 

Let me give you one case, a remarkable case, a 
case in which Jesus Himself was inactive, in which 
He was perfectly passive. I choose the incident 
in which the soldiers, who knew nothing about 
prophecy and cared less, figured. It was predicted 
of the Messiah, who should be offered as a sacri- 
fice for sin, that " not a bone of His body should be 
broken." And yet it was predicted that He should 
die a violent death. At one time the prediction 
was in imminent danger. The Jews, anxious to 
have the bodies of the crucified Jesus and the 
thieves taken down from the cross before their 
Sabbath began, asked Pilate to see that these vic- 
tims on the cross should be despatched at once. To 
satisfy them Pilate gave commandment according 
to their wish, and sent the soldiers to despatch 
them. The soldiers came first to the two thieves 
who were crucified with Jesus, and broke their legs 
to hasten their death. Then they came to Jesus 



THE HOSA NNA -DA Y. 223 

to do likewise to Him. To their amazement they 
found that He was dead already, so instead of 
breaking His legs, one of the soldiers ran his spear 
into His side. " Not a bone of His body was 
broken." His body ran an awful risk, but the risk 
was only intended to magnify the odd prediction 
and its odder fulfilment. In this fulfilment of 
prophecy Jesus was perfectly passive ; it was ful- 
filled by the Romans, who had no interest in proph- 
ecy and besides no knowledge of prophecy, and by 
the Jews, who were the enemies of Jesus. 

Right in this line the hosanna-day, with the tri- 
umphant entry into Jerusalem, comes in. His en- 
trance into Jerusalem, as He now enters it, proves 
His deity and establishes the correspondence be- 
tween him and the Messiah, who looks out of the 
page of prophecy. The true Messiah must enter 
Jerusalem as Jesus of Nazareth enters it on Palm 
Sunday. Thus it is written in the prophecy of 
Zechariah. Could a false Messiah fulfil this pre- 
diction ? Evidently not. Too many human wills 
would have to be consulted and manipulated. 
Every soul that shouts "hosanna" would have to 
be handled and made a willing actor in a mere 
farce and in a gross deception. There was no 
way of securing this triumphal march other than 
the way in which it was secured. How was it se- 
cured ? It was secured by the matchless character 
of Jesus Christ. It was secured by the exhibition 
of His divine power in raising Lazarus from the 



224 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

dead. It was this miracle that led the people to 
crown Christ. Jesus must raise Lazarus from the 
dead, and this unprecedented act must electrify 
the crowd, before the crowd, moved by a common 
and an irresistible impulse, shall decree His public 
coronation. If Jesus of Nazareth had not been 
able to do the deeds of God, there never would 
have been the cry, " Hosanna to the Son of David; 
blessed is he that cometh in the name of the 
Lord ; hosanna in the highest ! " 

I wish you, in the second place, to look upon 
this hosanna- day as 

2. A type of the enthusiasm which should char- 
acterize the people of God in their service of Jesus 
Christ. 

The one thing that reigned that day was enthu- 
siasm. There was feeling, and thrill, and deep life, 
and outbursting emotion in the triumphal entry into 
Jerusalem, and Jesus approved of it all. I argue 
for the equipment of enthusiasm in the service of 
Christ. I argue for emotion and plenty of emo- 
tion. I argue for fervency of spirit, the spirit 
burning, raised to the highest temperature of life 
and heat, and radiating both light and heat. The 
faculties should be on fire for Christ. I argue for 
good old-fashioned Methodism, which in olden 
times brought sinners to Christ by the hundreds. 
I argue for natures aroused, and religion at a white 
heat, and spiritual life full of efhcacy and power, 
and goodness in which there is no languor, but in 



THE HO SA NNA -DAY. 225 

which there is constant sparkle. There are higher 
moods and lower moods in the Christian life, just 
as there are higher moods and lower moods in the 
intellectual life. Every scholar knows that there 
are such things as inspirational moods, when all 
the faculties awaken and kindle and glow, when 
the heart burns within, when the mind is auto- 
matic and works without a spur, when the mental 
life is intense, when all things seem possible, when 
the very best in the man puts itself unbidden into 
the productions of his pen, when the judgment is 
quick and active, and the reason clear and farsee- 
ing, and the conscience keen and sensitive. These 
are the moods we glory in. These are the moods 
that give the world its long-lived mental master- 
pieces. These are the moods we want to dedicate 
to our religion. These are the moods which God 
demands. These are the moods which carry in 
them our strongest emotions. God demands our 
emotions. No one can take the book of Psalms 
and use it in the worship of God without seeing 
that God intends to call out emotion in His ser- 
vice. The book throbs with intense feeling. 
Strong hope, and burning love, and reverential 
fear, and bounding joy, and soaring aspiration, 
are all here. 

The icicle saint would make a poor rendering 

of the One Hundred and Fiftieth Psalm. There 

are verses of psalms all through the psalter that 

are blazing fires. No heart can take them into 

r 5 



226 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

its hidden depths without breaking forth into loud 
hosannas. 

I argue for man's best in the religious life. 
Man is at his best when he is enthusiastic in his 
Christianity. Enthusiasm is power, enthusiasm 
is progress. Enthusiasm is a synonym for effec- 
tiveness and courage and aggressiveness in the 
Lord's cause. What brought out the first open 
confession of Christ's deity before men? This 
confession : " Thou art the Christ the son of 
the Living God ! " It was enthusiasm. What 
brought faith to this high degree of appropriation 
that it cried, "My Lord and my God?" It 
was enthusiasm. What gave to the Jerusalem 
sinners that first gospel sermon on Pentecost which 
converted three thousand souls? It was enthu- 
siasm. What opened the gates of the Christian 
Church to the knocking Gentile world, and by one 
bold act struck down the prejudices of a thousand 
years ? It was enthusiasm. 

By enthusiasm, when it is of eminent degree, 
men propel themselves upon others in matters of 
taste, of affection, and of religion. Iron cannot 
be welded at a low temperature. It must be red- 
hot; when red-hot, then you can weld iron to iron. 
So you cannot weld natures to each other when 
they are at a low temperature. Mind cannot take 
hold of mind, nor .faculty of faculty, when they are 
not in a glow. But when they are in a glow they 
can. When your mind is aroused with enthusi- 



THE HOSANNA-DAY. 227 

asm, it is then influential with my mind, and it is 
scarcely any more a matter of my will whether I 
shall follow or not. There is no other time when 
men have such power over their fellow-men as 
when they are in their higher moods. Love and 
faith at a white heat are irresistible. One reason 
why the apostles had such power wherever they 
went was that, having no fastidious taste or thought 
about anything, they had that telling, lunging 
power which men like and feel. They were red- 
hot all the time, hence everywhere men caught 
fire at their sacred touch. 

We see this exemplified in society. Hundreds 
and hundreds of men, who are rich in learning, 
ponderous in mental equipment, ample in philo- 
sophical power, but who are low in degree of tem- 
perature, labor all their life and achieve but little. 
You see right by the side of these men, men who 
can bear no comparison with them in native power 
or in culture, but who have simplicity, straight- 
forwardness, and, above all, intensity, who are 
eminent in accomplishing results. 

They know in whom they believe and in what 
they believe, and with one or two simple truths, 
and with light and fire in the soul, they go forward 
and achieve ten times more than men who are bet- 
ter equipped. 

There are people, I know, who have an antipathy 
to enthusiasm and emotion in religion. They ob- 
ject that we cannot rely upon enthusiasm. They 



228 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

forget that if it spring from the grace of God it 
has an inexhaustible fountain. They back their 
assertion by an appeal to this Scripture page. 
They say : " Here you see the true working of 
enthusiasm. It is a bundle of shavings ; there is 
a blaze for a moment, and then you have nothing 
but cold dead ashes. It is a mere flame, and then 
utter darkness. One hour, enthusiastic people cry 
' Hosanna ! ' but the next hour they cry ' Cru- 
cify !' ' The charge is a bold charge to bring 
against the grace of Christian enthusiasm, and 
the appeal to Scripture is a bold appeal ; they are 
both mere assumptions and are utterly false. I 
deny that the hosanna people of Jerusalem ever 
cried " Crucify ! " The charge that they did is 
without a single line of Scripture as a basis. 
Peter, and James, and John, and men of that 
class, did they cry " Crucify" ? Yet the hosanna 
people were made up of such. In a city in which 
there were gathered from all parts of the nation 
not less than two millions, there were certainly 
enough people of diverse minds to create two par- 
ties diametrically opposed, without requiring us to 
slander the grace of enthusiasm and circulate false 
reports about the hosanna people. I stand by the 
hosanna people, and fearlessly assert that there is 
no proof against their integrity. 

Enthusiasm ! That is what the Church needs. 
It is only the enthusiast who succeeds. This is 
so in every sphere. Turn to the history of fine 



THE HOSANNA-DA Y. 229 

arts, and there you see the statement verified. It 
is verified by the familiar story told of Correggio. 
The artist Correggio, when young, saw a painting 
of Raphael. Long and ardently did the youth 
gaze upon that picture. His soul drank in its 
beauty, as flowers drink moisture from the mist. 
As he looked upon it he awoke to a consciousness 
of his own artistic power. Burning with the en- 
thusiasm of enkindled genius, the blood rushing 
to his brow, and the fire flashing from his eyes, he 
cried out, " And I also am a painter! " That con- 
viction carried him through his initial studies. It 
blended his colors on his palette, and guided his 
pencil, and shone upon his canvas, until Titian 
on witnessing his productions exclaimed, " Were 
I not Titian, I would be Correggio ! " 

Turn to the history of the cause of Christ, and 
there also will you find the statement borne out. 
What was Paul, the chief of Christian workers, but 
an enthusiast? His letters are filled with trans- 
ports of joy and thanksgiving. It was enthusiasm 
that carried him through the trials which he bore 
for the name of Christ. It was enthusiasm that 
planned and executed the herculean tasks which 
fill his biography. Rob Paul of his enthusiasm, 
and you blot out of existence the churches of Cor- 
inth, and Ephesus, and Galatia, and Thessolanica, 
and Troas. Rob him of his enthusiasm and you 
annihilate the epistles to the Romans, Corinth- 
ians, Ephesians, and the Pastoral epistles. Paul 



230 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LAXDS. 

was an enthusiast. His whole apostolic life was 
one unbroken " hosanna to the Son of David." 

In the third place I would have you look upon 
this hosanna-day as 

3. A picture of the great future coronal-day of 
Jesus Christ which is on the way. 

I can only state this point, I cannot treat it in 
any detail. I can only say that this world is going 
to be some day a hosanna-world. All things are 
working for Christ, and the world is getting ready 
for His millennial reign. Some time there is going 
to be one long continuous day of palm branches. 
Palm Sunday has been duplicated and re-dupli- 
cated ever since the triumphal entrance of Jesus 
into Jerusalem; and this reduplication is going 
to continue until Jesus is ultimately and forever 
crowned on the grand day of final consummation. 
The world even now is full of " hosannas to the 
Son of David." The humble Christian school of 
the missionary in foreign lands is a hosanna sound- 
ing through the darkness of heathendom. The 
philanthropic institution that rises into sight all 
over Christendom is a " hosanna to the Son of 
David " echoing through civilization. The gor- 
geous cathedral standing like a mountain of beauty 
is a " hosanna to the Son of David " worked into 
stone and echoing itself in the realm of art. The 
holy life of every disciple on every continent of 
earth is a " hosanna to the Son of David " ring- 
ing throughout the world of humanity. These 



THE HOSANNA-DAY. 231 

hosannas are going to be kept up until the end 
comes, and then all the universe of God's redeemed 
is going to peal forth the grand Hallel in the hear- 
ing of eternity. This coming, climacteric scene is 
thus pictured by Bickersteth in his " Yesterday, 
To-day, and Forever:" 

" The Eternal Father puts upon the head of the Eternal Son 
A crown, which in itself is many crowns. 
And then, from amidst the Throne a voice 
Commanding Hallelujah. And forthwith 
From cherubim and burning seraphim, 
And from the hierarchal presbytery, 
And from the Bride, low at the Bridegroom's feet, 
And from the principalities and powers, 
And hosts of angels ranked in endless files, 
As sounds the roar of mighty multitudes, 
Or rush of many waters in still night, 
Or thunders echoing from hill to cloud, 
Arise that pealing coronation hymn — 
Crown him forever, crown him King of kings ; 
Crown him forever, crown him Lord of lords ; 
Crown him the glorious conqueror of hell ; 
Crown him the everlasting Prince of Peace ; 
Crown him Jehovah, Jesus Lamb of God, 
Hallelujah ! Hallelujah ! Amen. " 



MOUNT CARMEL, OR THE RELIGION 

OF GOD PUT TO THE TEST AND 

FOUND TRUE. 



IX. 



Mount Carmel, or the Religion of God Put 
to the Test and Found True. 

" And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces, and 
they said : The Lord, he is the God ; the Lord, he is the God." 
— I. Kings xviii. 39. 

The convocation of Carmel was one of the most 
memorable events in the national life of Israel. It 
was also a supreme moment in the experience of 
Elijah, God's one solitary open witness in Israel. 
The questions to be decided were : 

"Which is the true religion?" "Who is the 
true God, Baal or Jehovah? " 

You know the antecedent history. Ahab, the 
king of Israel, married a wicked woman named 
Jezebel. She was a Phoenician idolater, a worship- 
per of Baal. She was an ancient Lady Macbeth. 
She was Lucretia Borgia and Catherine de Medici 
in one. Through her slaughter of the prophets 
of God, the true religion was dethroned in Israel, 
and the corrupt, licentious religion of Baal was 
substituted in its place. It was not to be ex- 
pected that the reigning God, Jehovah, who made 
Israel a nation, would submit to this, He had 



238 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

better things for Israel, and by righteous judg- 
ments He determined to bring His chosen people 
into these better things. He sent a famine into 
the land which lasted three years and a half. 
During all that time the sun blazed in the heav- 
ens like a ball of fire. The atmosphere quivered 
like the air in a heated furnace. There was not 
a moist rock, nor a rill, nor a spring of water in 
all the land. As we strike the famine, dismay 
fills every heart and consternation sits on every 
face. The cattle are crying, the children are 
drooping, and men and women, burning with a 
red-hot fever, are fast becoming walking skele- 
tons. 

As we try to reach an adequate idea of the scene 
we recall Mendelssohn's oratorio, " Elijah." It 
opens with a wondrous passage, which tries to 
represent the despair of a whole nation perishing 
from thirst. After giving vent to the despair, 
first in sullen, restless murmurings, it pictures it 
as gathering at length a terrible cumulative strength 
which bursts forth in appalling cries of heart-rend- 
ing importunate agony. Only the genius of a 
Mendelssohn, who had at his command the world 
of sound, dare try to picture a nation in the ago- 
nies of thirst. 

When judgment had wrought its perfect work, 
and when the nation was ready to enter with 
downright earnestness into a search after a knowl- 
edge of the true God, Elijah, the prophet, pro- 



MOUNT C ARM EL. 239 

posed a convocation, and designated Carmel as 
the meeting place. 

Mount Carmel was the fittest stage for the pro- 
posed drama. It was the central mountain of Pal- 
estine. It gave the people a twofold view. " As 
they looked westward and northward," says Dr. 
Robinson, " they could see the Mediterranean 
dotted with the merchant ships of Tyre and Sidon 
— the great strongholds of Baal. As they looked 
eastward and southward they could see the moun- 
tains and villages of Israel, around which hung a 
thousand hallowed associations and memories of 
the marvellous power and loving kindness of Jeho- 
vah, the God of their fathers. Two maps unrolled 
at their feet : on the one side the map of the king- 
dom of Baal, and on the other side the map of the 
kingdom of Jehovah." This was the place of all 
places where the claims of these two gods should 
be decided. 

When the day of meeting came, he bravely 
stepped upon the scene and opened his address 
with a searching question, which contained in it a 
charge of indecision and disloyalty, and a lack of 
common sense. Edmund Burke said he did not 
know how to draw up an indictment against a 
whole nation; but Elijah did. Here is his indict- 
ment : " How long halt ye between two opinions ? 
If Baal be God, follow him; but if Jehovah be 
God, follow him. Ye cannot serve two masters ; 
ye cannot be Baalites and Jehovahites." 



240 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

Under the prophet's charge of indecision and 
disloyalty, the Israelites were dumb. They were 
speechless from conscience. They were silent 
from guilt. Thus it always is. Indecision and 
disloyalty in religion have no defence. God has 
constructed us with faculties which make decision 
a law of our very nature. On any important and 
essential thing indecision is unrest and torment to 
a thinking, reasoning, conscientious man. I am 
talking to your inner life. 

But how shall Israel know who is the true God ? 
That is the question, and Elijah suggests a method 
of arbitration for its answer. He suggests a test 
of works. The tree is known by its fruit; a man 
is known by his character; God is known by His 
works. God-like acts prove Deity. Elijah makes 
this proposition : " I stand alone as the prophet of 
Jehovah. Here are four hundred and fifty proph- 
ets of Baal, a mighty prayer power — that is, if 
Baal be a prayer-hearing god. Let them slay and 
dress a victim and put it on' an altar, and I will 
slay and dress a victim and put it on an altar. 
We shall not put any fire under the altar. They 
shall call upon Baal to send fire down from the 
sky to consume their sacrifice; and I shall call 
upon Jehovah to send fire down from the sky and 
consume my sacrifice. All this shall be done 
openly in your presence, and the god that answer- 
eth by fire, let him be god." This proposition 
seemed so fair that the people accepted of it at 



MOUNT CAR MEL. 241 

once. They said, "It is well spoken." And it 
was well spoken. You would have accepted of 
this method of arbitration and so would I. 

As we look at Elijah throwing down the gaunt- 
let, we see in him a hero full of magnificent faith 
and boldness. But is he not too venturesome? 
Is he not guilty of presumption ? Does he not 
take risks that are too awful? Is it not a.i un- 
heard of thing for God to hurl fire from the skies ? 
To a man of little faith it would seem as though 
Elijah were putting the credit of Jehovah's wor- 
ship into fearful risk and imperilling everything ; 
but to Elijah's strong faith nothing was imperilled 
except Baalism. The prophet of fire was not sur- 
prised to see fire leap from the sky. He would 
have been surprised if God had withheld fire. He 
was not treading an unknown way. He was not 
expecting God to do an unprecedented thing. God 
often had hurled fire from the skies. He rained 
a storm of fire upon the cities of the plains. He 
threw fire around the bush of the desert, and talked 
from out of it with Moses. By fire He answered 
the transgressions of Nadab and Abihu. By fire 
he burnt up the rebellious Korah and his com- 
pany. By fire he answered Solomon at the dedi- 
cation of the temple. Elijah knew all this. Je- 
hovah had shown Himself to be the God who 
answers by fire, and Elijah had precedent upon 
which to base his strong faith and grand venture. 
Besides this, according to his own words, he was 
16 



242 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

acting in all these matters under the bidding of 
God. He who follows a commandment of God 
runs no risk. It is no risk for Gideon's three 
hundred to hurl themselves against the countless 
hosts of Midian. It is no risk for the Israelites 
to attack the massive walls of Jericho with rams' 
horns. It is no risk for the mother of Moses, in 
the exercise of her faith, to put her babe into the 
waters of the Nile. When the decrees of God 
stand between us and danger, we are as safe as 
God Himself is. 

I am not going to tell the story of the failure 
of the prophets of Baal ; I stop only to say that 
they failed, and failed ignobly. In the end every 
false thing fails. This is one of the axioms in the 
mathematics of history; this is one of the certain- 
ties of the universe. A false face, a false charac- 
ter, a false credit, a false religion, will always 
prove valueless in the day of testing and scrutiny. 
I shall not spend time on the worthless prophets ; 
I am concerned altogether with Elijah and his 
religion. 

We see Elijah now at his best. He rises to the 
occasion. He is conscious of his solitariness, but 
that does not intimidate him. He knows that he 
is alone, a single man against the political and 
religious power of the nation ; but he acts heed- 
less of the fact that the majority is against him. 
His motto is, " One man with God is a majority." 

With every eye resting upon him, and looking 



MOUNT CARMEL. 243 

him through and through, he takes up the duty of 
the hour and plays his part like a man. Carefully 
and reverently he gathers together the fragments 
of the broken-down altar of Jehovah, and selecting 
twelve stones, he rebuilds the altar of God. As 
these actions were symbolical, he spake to the 
people through them. By the twelve stones, 
which represented the twelve tribes of Israel, he 
declared to the people that God's children should 
everywhere be one in their worship. By the altar 
itself, which was a parable in stone, he rebuked Is- 
rael for worshipping any God save Jehovah. By 
repairing the old altar, instead of building a new 
one, he declared to the people that he was the re- 
storer of the law and of the true and ancient wor- 
ship of the fathers. Having finished the altar, he 
dug a trench around it, then he slew a bullock and 
dressed it, and laid it on the altar. After this, to 
make the miracle of igniting the sacrifice all the 
greater, and to put faith to the greatest strain, he 
had strong men carry large water- jars, full of wa- 
ter, and pour the water on the altar and on the sacri- 
fice. They poured jarful after jarful until the 
trench was overflowing, and until everything was 
saturated and dripping. 

When this was done, Elijah quietly knelt by the 
unlit altar and made his appeal to Jehovah in 
prayer. He talked with God as a child would 
talk with its father. His prayer was earnest. 
The whole fire and fervor of his great soul was 



244 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

in it ; still, it was not frantic, like the prayer of one 
who fears that he may not be heard. It was in- 
stinct with the glory of God and the good of Is- 
rael. There was no wild gesture in it, no multi- 
plied cries, no vain repetitions; it was full of faith 
and experience ; it was brief and to the point. He 
asked God to manifest His existence, and to claim 
the homage that was His due ; he asked God to 
certify him as His prophet, and in this way win 
back the hearts of the people. He did not ask 
that God would change the facts, but he did ask 
that God would make the facts apparent to the 
people. Clear and distinct his voice was heard, 
and this was the prayer that fell upon the ears of 
the attentive throng : " Lord God of Abraham, 
Isaac, and of Israel, let it be known this day that 
thou art God in Israel, and that I am thy servant, 
and that I have done all these things at thy word. 
Hear me, O Lord, hear me, that this people may 
know that thou art the Lord God, and that thou 
hast turned their hearts back again." 

As the prayer ascended, the fire fell. A bolt, 
charged with intense burning, flashed through the 
sky. Every eye saw it and every soul felt the 
darting brightness of its Shekinah-like blaze. A 
wave of heat followed it and swept over the multi- 
tudes, and sensibly struck every cheek. When 
the heavenly bolt smote the altar, there was a 
loud hiss as the fire and water met; then a swift 
cloud of vapor floated up and out into the air; 



MOUNT CARMEL. ■ 245 

then a thick cloud of smoke, into which the vic- 
tim had been transformed, rolled heavenward ; and 
then the usual odor of burnt sacrifice filled the 
atmosphere. All this transpired in less time than 
it takes to put the description of it into words. 
When smoke and vapor passed away, nothing was 
seen but the kneeling prophet of God. There was 
neither sacrifice nor altar visible. Everything had 
been consumed by the piercing, intense heat of the 
divine fire, which fell red-hot from the cloudless 
sky. The very altar had been pulverized; the 
very stones had volatilized and had disappeared. 
God's work was a complete work, and the vindi- 
cation of Elijah's religion was a complete vindi- 
cation. Grandly was Elijah's faith crowned, and 
that in the presence of the people and to their 
complete satisfaction. 

It is easy to forecast the effect of this wondrous 
miracle. The court and the priesthood trembled ; 
conflicting emotions shot and reshot through the 
souls of the countless spectators ; the vast crowds 
were overawed; instantaneous conviction took 
hold of the great majority. The people were 
deeply impressed, and a revulsion of feeling swept 
over them and through them. They felt that the 
grand old days of the fathers had come back to 
their nation. For a moment the silence of the 
grave hung over Carmel ; it was a portentous si- 
lence. It was a silence like the silence before the 
storm-burst. It seemed a long, long silence, for 



246 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

there was terror in it. But it was not long. It 
was soon broken, broken instantaneously. For 
the convicted and converted people, swayed by 
emotions which were bound to express themselves, 
as one man lifted up their voices and cried "Je- 
hovah, He is God!" "Jehovah, He is God!" 
That glad cry of faith rent the air and echoed 
from summit to summit along the mountain range 
of Carmel, and peak after peak caught up the 
words and threw them back — "Jehovah, He is 
God ! " " Jehovah, He is God ! " 

Such is the history. Now what are the eternal 
facts embodied in this history. The eternal facts 
embodied in it are three in number. 

I. God's Religion will Bear Testing. 

Elijah tested it when he put Jehovah and Baal 
side by side. Comparative theology is testing it 
to-day. As the followers of Jesus Christ we can 
put Christianity by the side of any of the ethnic 
religions without fear. 

Our religion appeals to man as a rational being. 
It invites testing and scrutiny. But in testing and 
scrutinizing it, it is only fair and reasonable that 
we should be honest and should have high aims. 
We must be earnest seekers of the truth. God 
gives no promise to triflers ; and why should He? 
Men do not declare and defend their grandest pur- 
poses and principles before triflers. Nobody in 



MOUNT CARMEL. 247 

heaven or on earth has any respect for a trifler. 
If an architect were building a house on one of 
our streets, he would not open his plans and speci- 
fications to a curious lounger who happened to 
have time upon his hands to while away. Why 
should he ? But let a student of architecture, a 
young man with a worthy object before him; or 
let a man who is in search of some one who may 
build him just such a house, come to him, asking 
a true insight into the plans and specifications, 
and the architect gives his whole mind and energy 
to the task of opening up everything. He is not 
dealing with a trifler. He is dealing with a man 
who is in earnest, and who is swayed by a worthy 
object. Christ deals with inquirers in a manner 
similar to this. The Pharisees, heaping contempt 
upon what He has said and done, come to Him 
and ask for a sign from heaven. They are triflers. 
They do not come to Him in the right spirit. 
They ignore the many and convincing signs which 
are all around them, and because of this, Jesus 
says to them, " There shall no sign be given you. 
Your spirit is wrong, your intention is wrong, you 
are trifling with me." While He denies them, 
see how He treats humble followers and earnest 
seekers after the truth ! Contrast His treatment 
of the embassy which comes from John the Bap- 
tist with His treatment of the proud and haughty 
Pharisees. He gives this embassy sign after sign. 
He multiplies miracles before their eyes. He 



248 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

heals the sick, He gives sight to the blind, He 
cleanses the leper, He even raises the dead; and 
thus overpowers them with proofs of His deity 
and of His identity with the promised Messiah. 
Man, in testing God and His religion, must be 
honest if his testing is to prove effective and 
profitable. 

II. It is Every Man's Duty to Test God's 
Religion. 

Religion will bear the test; that is one point 
It is every man's duty to test religion honestly; 
that is another point. Have we all tested it ? 
Have we dealt fairly and candidly and honestly with 
Christianity? Has the Christian religion received 
the thought and study which are its due and which 
the interests of the immortal nature of man de- 
mand? If you are not an out-and-out Christian, 
so far as you are concerned, it has not. If you 
are not an active member of the Christian Church, 
so far as you are concerned, it has not. The great 
duty of your life is yet before you, and to that 
duty I call you, as Elijah called Israel. Test the 
religion of God. 

That you may be helped in your duty, let me 
set your duty before you. Let me show you how 
you can and how you should test Christianity. 

i. Test Christianity's Christ. 

Christ is Christianity. He embodied His own 



MOUNT CARMEL. 249 

teachings and principles in His own life. He 
lived His religion. He was truth. He was light. 
He was love. He was honesty. 

You have been dealing with His disciples; deal 
with Him. His disciples often misrepresent Him. 
By their imperfections, honest as their intentions 
may be, they obscure His glory and alter the tone 
of His religion. Even the very best of His dis- 
ciples do so. A simple story from His biography 
will illustrate this. On one occasion mothers 
brought their children to have Him take them up 
in His arms and bless them. But His leading 
disciples stood between Christ and the mothers, 
saying, "Trouble him not; take the children 
away." What a misrepresentation of Christ's in- 
terest in children! Had that misrepresentation 
of Christ prevailed it would have changed the 
whole destiny of the Christian religion. But 
Christ did not let it prevail ; He corrected it on 
the spot. He uttered these precious words which 
have broadened His kingdom and enthroned Him 
in the home : " Suffer the little children to come 
unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the 
kingdom of heaven." If you want to know Chris- 
tianity, deal with it first hand ; deal with its Christ. 
He stands as the great power and defence of our 
religion. Infidelity may build fortresses against 
Christianity out of the inconsistencies of Chris- 
tians; it may even spike the guns of apologists; 
but the holy and perfect character of Christ is a 



250 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

bulwark against which it dashes itself in pieces 
every time it clashes with it. I have all confidence 
in Christ. There is not a man who will deal with 
Him honestly and thoroughly but will feel the thrill 
that is in his life, and will be humbled before the 
majesty and purity and love of His unspotted na- 
ture. If you are not an open Christ-man the reason 
is you do not know Christ; you have never put 
yourself under His transforming influence. 

2. Test Christianity's works. 

See what Christianity has done and is still doing 
in the world. Compare Christian lands with pa- 
gan lands. Ask yourself in which lands you would 
prefer to live, and which civilization of all civiliza- 
tions you would choose. Facts are lamps by which 
we see Christ and His religion. You choose the 
products which Christ and His religion have given 
the world. Why not choose the cause of these ? 
Can you give an intelligent reason why not? 
Standing in the nineteenth century we can confi- 
dently appeal to the products of the Gospel as a 
proof of the worth of the Gospel and as an estab- 
lishment of its claims. 

This is the way intelligent and fair-minded men 
judge it. Let me quote just two instances. I am 
glad of their testimony, for it is the testimony of 
candid students. 

I quote from the words of Chauncey Depew, the 
lately elected Senator from the State of New York, 
who so nobly answered Julian Hawthorne at one 



MOUNT CARMEL. 25 * 

of the meetings of the Nineteenth Century Club. 
These are his words : 

" I confess I do not understand these evangels 
of free thought, who claim to do so much for the 
wide world through their scientific and sociologi- 
cal associations. London has these associations, 
but the poor and needy and lost of London know 
nothing about them. But they do know something 
about the churches of Christ. These evangels of 
free thought use a language of strange terms and 
beautiful generalities which convey no meaning 
to me. They would tumble down my church and 
bury my Bible and destroy all the foundations of 
faith, but they would offer in return only words 
and terminologies as mixed as chaos and as vague 
as space. I understand my Bible. I understand 
Christian charity and Christian education. I un- 
derstand the doctrine of fears and rewards, and 
how it arouses and keeps in exercise a healthy 
conscience. I know what Christianity has done 
and what it is doing. I know what the Christian 
religion has been to this nation, and what civiliza- 
tion it produces when it is allowed a sway. A 
better society never has been and never will exist 
than that in New England, for its first one hun- 
dred and fifty years, when the whole life was 
dominated by the family Bible." 

Here is a candid man testing Christianity by 
its works ; and his verdict is, " The Lord, He is 
God." 



252 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

I quote next the words of our late minister to 
England, James Russell Lowell. Being called 
upon to make an after-dinner speech, it fell to his 
lot to follow one who had indulged in flings at 
Calvinism and the Bible. He was brave enough 
to utter these words : 

" Whatever defects and imperfections may attach 
to a few points of the doctrinal system of Calvin, 
the bulk of which is simply what all Christians 
believe, it will be found that Calvinism, or any 
other ism that claims an open Bible and a cruci- 
fied and risen Christ, is infinitely preferable to 
any form of polite and polished scepticism which 
gathers as its votaries the degenerate sons of he- 
roic ancestors who, having been trained in a soci- 
ety and educated in schools the foundations of which 
were laid by men of faith and piety, now turn and 
knock down the ladder by which they have climbed 
up, and persuade men to live without God and 
leave them to die without hope. When the mi- 
croscope of scepticism, having hunted the heavens 
and sounded the seas to disprove the existence of 
a Creator, shall have turned its attention to human 
society and found a place ten miles square where 
a decent man can live in decency, comfort, and 
security, supporting and educating his children 
unspoiled and unpolluted, a place where age is rev- 
erenced, infancy appreciated, manhood respected, 
womanhood honored, and human life held in due 
regard; when sceptics can find such a place ten 



MOUNT CAR MEL. 253 

miles square on this globe where the Gospel of 
Christ has not gone and cleared the way, and laid 
the foundation and made decency and security pos- 
sible, it will then be in order for the sceptical literati 
to move thither and there ventilate their views. But 
so long as these very men are dependent upon the 
religion which they discard for every privilege they 
enjoy, they may well hesitate a little before they 
seek to rob the Christian of his hopes, and human- 
ity of its faith in that Saviour who alone has given 
to man the hope of life eternal, which makes this 
life tolerable and society possible, and robs death 
of its terrors, and the grave of its gloom." 

Here is another leader of thought testing Chris- 
tianity by its works, and his verdict is, "The 
Lord, He is God." 

III. When Men, by Honest Testing, find 

the Religion of God to be True, it is 

Their Duty Openly and Fearlessly 

to Confess this to the World. 

There should be no delay in this duty. It should 
be performed at once. Elijah worked for instan- 
taneous conversion and instantaneous confession. 
This is apparently so, and yet what seems in- 
stantaneous here was not, after all, instantaneous. 
In reality, this conversion of Israel was the result 
of long years. The memories of the past were in 
it. Years of reasoning and of appeal were in it. 



254 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

Men often say, during excitements of religious 
fervor, that actions committed in haste will be 
repented of at leisure ; that it is not fair dealing 
with great multitudes to ply them with hymns and 
prayers and preaching, and compel them to deter- 
mine before they leave the house that they will 
live a Christian life. They claim that it is precipi- 
tancy from which there will be a rebound. In the 
great majority of cases it is not precipitancy. It 
is simply bringing to a culmination the past relig- 
ious training and thinking of the man's past life. 
It is simply leading the man to do what all along he 
has felt it to be his duty to do. In an instant the 
heart and conscience, and the whole moral sense 
of the people, went out to the prophet ; but it 
would not have been so if Israel had not had its 
past history and training. Elijah did not precipi- 
tate things when he led the people into faith and 
into a public confession of their faith during a 
single religious service. 

There are some here to-night to whom I would 
speak as Elijah spake to Israel. There are some 
here to-night whom I would urge to come out for 
Christ right now. There are some here to-night 
to whom I would cry, in the words of this Scrip- 
ture, "Why halt ye?" "Why halt ye?" Do 
not say, " This is pushing things too rapidly. 
This would be a too hasty decision." Hasty de- 
cision ! It is not possible for a single soul in this 
house to make a hasty decision. Some of you 



MOUNT C ARM EL. 255 

have been revolving this decision for five years ; 
some of you have been revolving it for ten years ; 
some of you have been revolving it for fifteen, 
twenty, twenty-five years. If you should decide 
here and now this very moment, it would only be 
bringing the thought and purpose and conviction 
of a long past to a legitimate and a grand climax. 
A decision for God and Christ and the Church 
upon your part, here and now, a hasty decision ! 
The thought is the suggestion of the arch enemy 
of souls. Such a decision upon your part, here 
and now, would be the most deliberate act of your 
life. O immortal soul, Christ has been waiting 
for you to own Him these many and long years. 
You have thought the matter over and over, and 
there is not one thing to be gained by thinking it 
over any longer. By the absolute surrender of 
yourself to Christ, join, this very hour, the multi- 
tude of His convinced ones, and with the sacra- 
mental hosts of God's elect send out your cry into 
the dome of humanity, "The Lord, He is the 
God ! " " The Lord, He is the God ! " 



SOUL-SIGHT, OR A STORY OF 
JERICHO. 



i7 



X. 

Soul-Sight, or a Story of Jericho. 

" And Jesus asked him saying : 

" What wilt thou that I shall do unto thee ? " 

And he said : 
' Lord, that I may receive my sight.' " — Luke xviii. 41 

Why do I choose this text, and from it evolve 
this subject? Let me answer. One morning 
while I was reading my daily lesson from the Book 
in my tower studio, I came across this story of 
Bartimaeus. As I read it, I was suddenly startled 
by a cry which rang through the air. It was a 
cry with a quiver in it, and it sent a quiver through 
me. Was it a real cry, or was it only the creation 
of my brain ? It was a cry which leaped out from 
one of the verses of the chapter I was reading. 
It was the cry of the blind man who eighteen 
hundred years ago begged on the highway near 
the city of Jericho. Twice it was uttered and 
twice I heard it : " Jesus thou Son of David have 
mercy on me! " "Jesus thou Son of David have 
mercy on me ! " This cry which leaped from the 
printed page I read could not have been more mov- 
ing in its effect upon me if it had been uttered 
by a living voice, and that voice the voice of 



262 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

Bartimaeus himself. It made me one with that 
crowd which surged along the highway. It made 
Jesus real to me, it made the blind beggar real to 
me, it made the miracle of healing real to me. I 
read the story through, and then I read it a second 
time and a third time. After the third reading the 
suggestion came to me : " Why not take a thought- 
trip to Palestine and visit Bartimaeus, and get the 
story from his own lips ? " The suggestion was 
so pleasing that I took the first thought-ship that 
came along, and in five ticks of the clock I was 
there. At the first tick of the clock I was at 
Liverpool, at the second I was at Alexandria, at 
the third I was at Joppa, at the fourth I was at 
Jerusalem, and at the fifth tick I was at Jericho. 
I had no trouble in finding the house of Barti- 
maeus, for when on one of the streets of Jericho 
I asked " Where does Bartimaeus live ? " The 
fingers of no less than half a dozen bystanders 
pointed out his house, and no less than half a 
dozen voices said in unison, " Yonder is where he 
lives! His home is right across the street from 
the house of Zaccheus ! " 

My knock at the door was responded to by Bar- 
timaeus himself. I knew him at once. How? 
There was in his eyes, and in every feature of his 
face, the play of the holy light of Jesus Christ. 
Let Jesus Christ work in or on a man, and that 
man receives at once an unmistakable transfigura- 
tion. 



SOUL- SIGHT, OR A STORY OFJERICHO. 263 

I never had such a visit with any one as I had 
with that man. I never had any man shake hands 
with me as he shook hands with me. His greet- 
ing was cordiality itself, and the willing relation 
of his story was an enthusiasm. He lives to talk 
about Jesus Christ and to tell what He did for 
him. 

I can give you only a fragment of his story. 
When he found out who I was, that I was a friend 
of the Master, he asked me what I wished espe- 
cially to know. In reply I said to him : " Barti- 
maeus, I wish you to tell of your blind experi- 
ence, then how you learned of Jesus, then your 
experience in passing from darkness to light, then 
the scene which most impressed you when you 
received the power of vision ; but especially do I 
wish to know from you if natural sight was the 
only sight that Jesus gave you ? " 

He began his story in low, sweet, musical tones. 
Christ had even wrought on his voice, and had en- 
riched it with the tones of grace. He said : " You 
people of the nineteenth century have no idea 
what blindness meant when Jesus found me blind 
near the gates of our city. Your age is the golden 
age for blind men. Your inventions have broad- 
ened the universe for the sightless. They get 
light now through their finger tips. Books with 
raised letters have opened new worlds to them. 
Industries within their reach have brought into 
their lives the blessedness of work. By means of 



264 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

the ability of doing something useful, the blind 
are made conscious of their manhood and are en- 
nobled. In the days of my blindness, it was all 
different from this, for Christ had not come. He 
had not as yet started the influences which pro- 
duced this golden age for the blind. With me 
everything was pitch-dark and unattractive. Then 
blindness meant idleness, worthlessness, degrada- 
tion, dull and wearing monotony. All I could do 
was to beg. 

" I was very fond of talking ; that was my only 
source of information. I asked my neighbors 
what light was, and what sight was. I learned 
the names of the beauties of light : the sun, the 
moon, the stars. They told me of the rainbow 
with its different tints, and of the sparkling water- 
fall, and of the phosphorescent light of the ocean. 
They told me of the human face, and of the love- 
light in the eyes of friends, and I thought I un- 
derstood these things ; but now I find that all of 
my conceptions were radically wrong. A man 
must see in order to know. 

" You have asked me how I learned of Jesus ? 
I am coming to that. It was when I first heard 
of Jesus that I began to live. I never really lived 
before that day. A friend told me about Him. 
This friend was very kind to me, and visited me 
every day, but for a whole week he utterly neg- 
lected me. I was puzzled beyond measure at his 
absence. How had I offended him ? But he came 



SOUL-SIGHT, OR A STORY OF JERICHO. 265 

back to me. When I took him by the hand, I 
knew that he was full of good news, and that he 
had some glad thing to tell me. He explained his 
absence. He had been away following Jesus, the 
new wonderful man of Galilee. He told me how 
the crowds pressed around the Master, how He 
looked, His age, His height, His complexion, the 
estimation in which He was held by the people, 
what the scribes and rulers thought of Him, the 
theories which were in the air about Him — He 
was a prophet, He was Elijah come back to the 
world, He was the promised Messiah. He gave 
me reports of His discourses, and repeated word 
for word His beautiful parables, and the beati- 
tudes, and the prayer which He taught His dis- 
ciples. When he related to me the parable of the 
prodigal son, I found myself weeping like a child. 
It completely melted me. I had never heard of 
such love. It set me saying to myself, ' The 
Master must have a great heart.' From that in- 
stant there was a longing in my soul to hear Him 
talk. My heart was completely won. If I only 
could follow Him ! Such a man in my life would 
make me happy in spite of my blindness. My 
friend, you see, told me nothing about the great 
miracles which Jesus was working among the peo- 
ple. He kept that report until the last ; but it was 
bound to come. He said to me, ' Bartimaeus, the 
best news has yet to be told. This marvellous man 
of Nazareth is a great miracle worker.' Then he 



266 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LAXDS. 

related how Jesus had rebuked the fever and 
healed Peter's wife's mother. How He cured a 
man with the palsy, how He had given strength 
to a paralytic arm, how He had given a lame man 
the power to walk, how He had made deaf ears to 
hear. A thrill of hope began to course through 
me as I listened to these things. I said to myself, 
1 The story is creeping up toward my need. He 
has cured feet, and legs, and arms, and ears ; He 
is getting pretty close to the eyes. I wonder if 
He can give sight to the blind ? ' I did not speak 
out my hope, but I thought it so loud that my 
friend seemed to hear my thoughts, for he imme- 
diately told me that Jesus had gone so far in His 
works of healing that He had given sight to one 
man who had been born blind. What my friend 
said after that I cannot tell you ; I had ears for 
nothing else. One intense longing consumed me, 
one anxious cry kept repeating itself in my soul : 
' Oh, that Jesus would pass this way.' I had an 
intuition which told me that He would some day 
come my way. I looked upon this intuition as a 
promise of God that He would send Him. Then 
I began to prepare myself to meet Him. Then I 
got ready my cry for mercy : f Jesus thou Son of 
David have mercy upon me ! ' I shouted that cry 
through my soul a thousand times, and as I shouted 
it, I waited to hear the tramp of the multitudes, 
and I was not disappointed. When my ears actu- 
ally heard the tramp of the crowd, instinctively, 



SOUL-SIGHT, OR A STORY OF JERICHO. 267 

and before I knew it, that cry of mine rent the air 
and reached the Master. There is one thing Jesus 
cannot do, and that is, resist the cry for mercy ; so 
He commanded that I should be brought into His 
presence. When they led me to Him, He asked 
me, ' What wilt thou that I shall do unto thee ? ' 
and I answered, ' Lord that I may receive my 
sight' And He gave me the power of sight at 
once, there and then. There and then I saw His 
face, the first human face I ever saw. There and 
then I looked up into the blue dome for the first 
time. There and then, for the first time, I saw 
the wide plain and the towering mountain in the 
distance. There and then I learned what the 
green of the grass was, and what were the burning 
colors of the beautiful flowers. I was a new man, 
and the world was a new world. What did I do? 
All that I could do was to sing praise, and sing 
praise, and sing praise, and worship God, and wor- 
ship God, and worship God. 

" I must tell you of a strange experience which 
came to me, perhaps you forecast it. I mean my 
experience with reference to the coming of night, 
for all I have told you happened in the daytime. 
I had forgotten that there was such a thing as 
night ; so the night fell upon me as a great grief. 
As the day faded away, I saw things dimly, and 
I thought I was loosing my power of sight, and 
was going back to blindness again. The sensation 
gave me a heart-break, and terror struck through 



268 XEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

my soul. There was no cause for a heart-break 
nor for terror ; God had a new joy for me. He 
meant that I should see the glories of the night. 
And I did see them, and the sight was grand — a 
starry vault, out-flashing constellations, the great 
city of the skies with blazing worlds for its street- 
lamps, lighting up every highway and byway. 
Then I knew that I was living amid the splendors 
of God's overflowing love. Then I sang praise 
again, and worshipped God again. 

" You have asked me, ' Did Jesus give you any- 
thing besides natural sight, did He give you an- 
other sight ? ' That He did. You may well ask 
me that question, because there is another sight, 
soul-sight ; and as Jesus gave me both eye-sight 
and soul-sight, I can tell you that grand as eye- 
sight is, soul-sight is far grander. It gives a man 
a new world, the vast spiritual world, the world 
of thought, the world of morals, the heavenly world, 
the eternal world, the world in which God lives 
and moves and has His being. 

" I had many plans for life when eye-sight came ; 
plans which centered in self and in high physical 
enjoyment. I meant to enjoy travel with its grand 
mountain and ocean scenery, I meant to live on 
Carmel and Lebanon and Pisgah ; I meant to visit 
Athens, with its sculpture and architecture; I 
meant to study the classics with their mytholo- 
gies ; these eyes were going to do up the world of 
beauty and form. I was going to revel in sunsets 



SOUL-SIGHT, OR A STORY OF JERICHO. 269 

and sunrises, in the play of storm and in the flash 
of the rainbow, in the spring freshness and the au- 
tumnal glories. I had marked out great work for 
these eyes of mine. Such were my plans, but I for- 
got them. I forgot to make my natural sight my 
all in all in living, because Jesus had given me 
soul-sight ; Jesus made me see God's love, and 
when I saw that I determined to live for that. 
Jesus made me see my soul with its faculties and 
its needs and its future, and when I saw my soul I 
determined to live for that. Jesus made me see 
my fellow-men — all candidates for eternity, all 
having souls to be saved ; and when I saw my fel- 
low-men as He saw them, I determined to live for 
the salvation and the advancement of my fellow- 
men. Jesus made me see Himself, His nature, 
His mission, His cause in the world; and when I 
saw Him and His ambition and His glorious cause, 
I determined to give myself wholly to Him and to 
live wholly for Him. I followed Jesus to Calvary, 
and then to Olivet, and now that He has ascended 
to the Father, I am living here to bear testimony to 
Him as the Son of God and the Saviour of men. 
Thus I mean to live for Him until He comes to 
take me to that glorious world into which He has 
entered, and which to the eyes of my soul is as 
real as the world in which I now am. In parting 
with you, my brother, let me sum up the lesson of 
my experience in receiving sight from God. It is 
this : Soul-sight is everything. Seek it for your- 



270 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

self and do you tell your people to seek it for them- 
selves." 

My fellow-men, here is where my subject comes 
in " soul-sight." For you and for me, who enjoy 
natural sight, here is where the prayer of the text 
comes in : " Lord, that I may receive my sight ! " 
The text has a new meaning, a broader, grander 
meaning. Let us make the prayer of the text a 
prayer to God for soul-sight. The Master is here 
to-day, and His question is the old question : 
" What wilt thou that I shall do unto thee ? " As 
this man of Jericho tells us there is that which is 
called soul-sight, let us ask Him for that. 

The miracles of Jesus Christ all have lessons in 
them. The miracle of the loaves and fishes means 
that Christ is the bread of life. The miracle of 
the resurrection of Lazarus means that Christ is 
the resurrection and the life. The miracle of giv- 
ing sight to the blind means that Jesus Christ 
opens the eyes of the soul, and gives us soul-sight. 
No miracle of Jesus Christ is an end in itself; 
every miracle is a means to an end, every miracle 
is a door opening into a great spiritual reality. 
The door out of this miracle opens into the great 
fact that there is such a thing as soul-sight, and 
that we should seek and possess that. That is the 
paramount blessing of life. As the Lord asks us 
to-day, " What wilt thou that I shall do unto 
thee? " let us reply, " Lord that I may receive my 
sight — my soul-sight." The soul is the organ of 



SOUL-SIGHT, OR A STORY OF JERICHO. 271 

reception ; let us pray God for power to receive 
into the soul the things which belong to the soul. 
These physical eyes of ours are symbols. They 
are the symbols of those faculties of mind and 
heart and soul by which we recognize and pene- 
trate and reach the core of things, and acutely 
perceive and apprehend verities, and grasp mean- 
ings, and discriminate and ascertain relations, and 
weigh and measure and judge and decide, and find 
out the real value and quality and essence of prin- 
ciples and purposes and propositions, and things 
moral and spiritual. Let us make the text a 
prayer for the opening and the strengthening of 
these faculties, and for power to make a right use 
of these faculties. Let us make it a prayer for 
the illuminated mind, and the enlightened con- 
science, and the sensitive heart, and the soul full 
of intuitions. Let us desire soul-sight and then 
pray for it. 

I hear you say: "Desire soul- sight! Ah, that 
is what I should have, but I have it not. Tell 
me how to reach this desire for soul-sight, and how 
to reach an appreciation of soul-sight. You must 
have some appreciation of soul-sight, you must 
have some desire for soul-sight, else you would 
not choose to preach on this great subject; tell 
me how you reached these? " 

I have not as much appreciation and desire in 
this direction as I wish I had; but I have more 
than I had formerly. I have reached the little 



272 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

growth to which I. have attained, just as Barti- 
maeus reached his knowledge of natural sight, and 
his desire for natural sight. It was his talk with 
others that led him on. The possession by others 
created within him a desire for a like possession. 
Because they saw, he wished to see. I have been 
made to realize how little soul-sight I possess by 
dealing with others. The high attainments of 
others have made me cry out for like attainments. 
I have been talking with the men who walk the 
pages of the Bible, and they have stirred me up. 
They have made me feel my defects, they have 
made me see my possibilities, they have made me 
yearn to reach the things which they have reached ; 
they have breathed into me a new ambition which 
has fruited in the prayer " Lord that I may receive 
my sight — my soul-sight." 

Come with me and let us visit these men, and 
<in this way learn what soul- sight is and what 
soul-sight does, and how attainable soul-sight is. 
The men of the Book are wonderful men, and they 
have been put into the Book to be our guides. 
What they have reached we can reach. Can the 
servant of Elisha reach the experience of Elisha ? 
Yes. In the midst of the armed hosts of Syria, 
which hemmed in Elisha and his servant, Elisha 
was in the enjoyment of perfect peace. By his 
soul-sight he saw that God and the heavenly le- 
gions were his defence. He saw a circle outside 
and around the circle of Syrian soldiery ; that cir- 



SOUL-SIGHT, OR A STORY OF JERICHO. 273 

cle was made up of the chariots of God, and these 
chariots were holding the whole Syrian army as 
captives. Elisha's servant had no soul-sight; he 
saw only with his natural eyes, and what his natu- 
ral eyes saw was this : He and the prophet were 
Syrian prisoners. Can the servant be lifted into 
the experience of the prophet, and into this sense 
of security in God ? Yes, by prayer. The prophet 
prayed that soul-sight might be given him : " Lord 
open the eyes of the young man that he may 
see;" and God opened his eyes, and he saw the 
mountain round about full of the chariots of God. 
God will give us soul- sight if we pray for it 
aright; and when soul-sight comes to us, we shall 
see the encircling providences of God about us and 
about the cause of God protecting His cause and 
His own with a sure protection. Let me tabulate 
for our instruction just what soul- sight did for 
these men of the Book ! 

In the first place — ■ 

I. It enabled them to see God and to live as in 
His sight. 

God was the greatest reality in their lives. God 
walked with Adam in the cool of the day. God 
visited Abraham's tent, and partook of his hospi- 
tality, and told him future things. The secrets of 
the Lord were Abraham's. God appeared to Moses 
in the burning bush and in the quaking moun- 
tain, and talked with him face to face until the 
countenance of Moses shone with the very light 
18 



274 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

of God's countenance. God came to Elijah at the 
brook Cherith. It was God's ravens that fed him. 
It was the glory of God that Isaiah saw in the 
vision of the temple. God dwelt in the hearts of 
the prophets. God inspired the psalmists and 
tuned their harps. God fought in Joshua and in 
Gideon, and gave the Israelites their victories. 
These men of the Book never lost sight of God's 
will ; they always knew it, and they always lived 
by it. These men never lost sight of God's prov- 
idences ; His providences were more real to them 
than the laws of nature. They saw God at the 
head of all life. They talked to God every day, 
and consulted Him in everything they did. A 
God-consciousness was the supreme thing in their 
lives, and it was the power that made them what 
they were. In measuring my life by their life, I 
feel the large absence of God from my life ; yet I 
admire their life. It is a life I wish to duplicate. 
I do not see God as they saw Him ; my conscious- 
ness of God is not as keen as theirs. God does 
not find in me the income and the outgo which 
He found in them. God is not my companion as 
He was theirs. Yet He should be. What is 
wrong? I have not their soul-sight. 

Is there for us a way of seeing God as there was 
for them ? There is a way. " Blessed are the 
pure in heart for they shall see God." The pure 
heart is man's God-seeing faculty. The pure 
heart is the lens that makes God discernible. 



SOUL-SIGHT, OR A STORY OF JERICHO. 275 

God is in everything pure ; He is in every pure 
thought, in every pure plan, in every pure saying, 
in every pure deed. He is in these, and He man- 
ifests Himself through these, just as the sun is in 
and manifests itself in the sparkle of the diamond 
and in the beauty of the flower. The heart is the 
seat of human sympathies and of human affections. 
Now it is through holy sympathies and purified af- 
ections that we see God. It is through the heart 
that we see God, and not through the intellect. 

Here is an astronomer; he has searched the 
skies over and over, and he says, " I do not see 
God; I have searched until my brain is tired." 
The man leaves off thinking and puts his charts 
and instruments away for the time and goes home. 
As he rests his brain by the fireside, he takes on 
his knee his sobbing child, who is breaking her 
heart over some broken toy. He tries to comfort 
her and make her happy — i.e., he lets his heart 
work ; he lets his affections and sympathies have 
a play. Do you know that while he is doing that 
he is in a fairer way to see God than he was when 
he was sweeping the fields of space with his mighty 
telescope ? As he acts the part of a father, and 
gives the sympathies and affections of his heart 
a play, the Father in heaven, and the story of the 
Gospel which tells us of the divine Father's love 
begins to seem less unreal to him ; nay, more, be- 
gins to seem real and true. He is bringing the 
right faculty to bear on God. Often a hard- 



2>]6 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

headed infidel, who has resisted skilful sermons, 
is brought to faith in God by the conduct or "by 
the lisped saying of his little child, about whom 
his heart is exercised. The little child on his 
knee unlocks the door of his personality to God. 
We wonder at it, we marvel that this is his way to 
God ; but we need not. It is all according to the 
truest philosophy. The explanation of it is this : 
The heart is the God-seeing faculty. In dealing 
tenderly with his helpless little one, the father's 
heart is active and alert and open, and God comes 
through his heart into his life. That is the natu- 
ral way for God to come into any man's life. His 
loving and tender dealing with his child purifies 
his heart, and he sees God. Ah, my wicked, hard- 
heartedness is a shut door against God. I must 
with the psalmist prepare my heart to seek the 
Lord. There was one thing about these great 
men of the Book, who saw God and to whom God 
was everything, and that one thing was this : they 
were all pure-hearted men and men of right sym- 
pathies. In this I want to be like them, for I 
want to see God. 

We are inquiring what soul-sight did for the 
men of the Book. Let me mention a second thing 
which it did: 

2. It enabled them to behold and recognize 
Jesus Christ in His true character. 

The men of the Book saw Christ in a way that 
enabled Him to make an impression upon them 



SO UL-SIGH 1 \ OR A S TOR Y OF JERICHO. 277 

far beyond the impression He makes upon me. 
I wish to see the Master as they saw Him, and 
to be assimilated to Him as they were assimilated 
to Him. Of course I am speaking of the disciples 
of Jesus. Not all the men who saw Him had 
soul-sight ; not all the men who looked into His 
face and examined His life saw Him as He was. 
The Pharisees did not; Caiaphas did not; they 
had not soul-sight. The Pharisees saw in Him 
Beelzebub; Caiaphas saw in Him a traitor to His 
country. But the seeing of Peter, and Thomas, 
and John, and Stephen, and Paul was altogether 
different. They had soul-sight. Peter saw Him 
as the Son of God : " Thou are the Christ, the Son 
of the living God." John saw Him as the glory 
of the Father : " We beheld in him the glory of 
the Father full of grace and truth." Paul saw 
Him as the incarnation of the fulness of the God- 
head : " He was the brightness of the Father's 
glory and the express image of his person. " " In 
Him dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily." 
Seeing Him thus, His disciples understood who 
He was and what His kingdom was, and, they ap- 
preciated the honor of His service. Seeing Him 
thus was the secret of their whole-hearted conse- 
cration, and of their sacrifices, and of their labors. 
Seeing Him thus, Jesus became to them the way 
to God. Do you know how to get the best vision 
of God ? You get it in Christ. He is the way 
up to Pisgah with its enrapturing visions. 



278 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

Years ago a company of travellers out in the 
Rockies determined to climb a certain peak whose 
steep precipices told them that there was a grand 
view from its summit. The climb was a tremen- 
dous task. It was full of dangers. When they 
had climbed the steeps and reached the top, they 
were more dead than alive. The first thing they 
saw on the mountain-top was a fresh wagon-track, 
and the leavings of a picnic party, which had just 
left the grand sights to which they had come. On 
the other side of the mountain there was a fine 
road which afforded an easy ascent. They were 
ignorant of this way. Men are climbing the 
mountain to God by the toilsome way of nature 
and science and human speculation ignorant of 
Christ or else wilfully neglectful of Christ. Christ 
is the way up, and He is a safe way and a sure 
way. His own words are true : " I am the way, 
the truth, and the life." " He that hath seen me 
hath seen the Father." In Him are the thoughts 
of God, and the love of God, and the saving pur- 
pose of God. When I stand by these disciples of 
the Book, and hear them talk of Christ, and preach 
His kingdom, and tell of His mission, and prove 
His deity, and go into raptures over His cross and 
the redemption which comes through His sacrificial 
death, I feel how limited Christ is to me, and 
how low are the views which I have of Him and 
His. I have yet to begin to comprehend Him as 
He is ; I have yet to begin to take in the sweep of 



SO UL- SIGH T, OR A S TOR V OF JERICHO. 279 

His influence in this world of ours; I have yet to 
begin to imagine the riches of His glory. My cry 
to God to-day is for sight, soul-sight, to under- 
stand Jesus Christ. 

We are inquiring what soul-sight did for the 
men of the Book. Let me mention a third thing 
which it did : 

3. It gave them an insight into the fulness and 
meaning of the Holy Scriptures. 

If you wish to get an idea of the fulness of the 
Scriptures, and of the depths of thought which are 
in them, watch the Master as He opens these; 
follow His eyes as they run through the holy 
pages. Where men see only the narration of sim- 
ple incidents, He sees deep revelations of great 
spiritual facts. Take two illustrations. The first 
is very familiar, the second is not so familiar. 
The first is His interpretation of God's word to 
Moses at the burning bush : " I am the God of 
Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob." In the 
heart of these words He sees the great doctrine of 
immortality. No man ever saw that doctrine there 
before, but it was always there. Abraham, Isaac, 
and Jacob must be still living somewhere and now, 
because " God is not the God of the dead, but the 
God of the living." Yet God calls Himself their 
God : " I am the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, 
and of Jacob." The second illustration is the way 
Jesus refutes, by Scripture, the charge that God 
is a narrow God, a local God, the God of one nation 



2 So NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

only, that He is simply the God of the Jews, with 
no sympathies for people outside of Judea. Jesus 
says, "That is not so," and He points to an over- 
looked scripture which proves what he says. He 
interprets the story of the cure of Naaman. 
" There were many lepers in Israel in the days of 
God's prophet, Elisha. If God were a God to the 
Jew, and to the Jew only, He would have cured 
the Jewish lepers, and only the Jewish lepers. 
But He cured not a single Jewish leper; He over- 
leaped the bounds of Judea in His sympathy and 
cured a Syrian leper, proving that He was not tied 
to any one nation, but was the God of the whole 
world." That was a prelude for Christ's great 
words : " God so loved the world that he gave his 
only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in 
him should not perish bat have everlasting 
life." I give these illustrations because from 
these two Scriptures Jesus brought forth truths 
which no one else ever brought forth; but they 
were there all the time. It took soul-sight to 
ese them. 

This soul-sight which Jesus had in such power 
He gave His disciples. " He opened their eyes 
so that they understood the Scriptures." 

When the soul-sight came, Peter saw Christ's 
resurrection in the Sixteenth Psalm, and pointed 
this fact out in his sermon on the day of Pente- 
cost; and Paul saw Christ's resurrection in the 
waving of "the first fruits" before the Lord, and 



SO UL- SIGHT, OR A S TOR Y OF JERICHO. 2 8 1 

pointed this fact out in his epistle to the Corin- 
thians. 

It was such soul-sight in dealing with the scrip- 
tures that the Psalmist sought when he prayed to 
God centuries ago with the open Book of God in 
his hand : " Open thou mine eyes that I may be- 
hold the wonderful things contained in thy law." 
I thank God for this prayer; it fits my needs ex- 
actly, and I offer it here and now to God. I want 
to get more out of the Lord's Prayer, more out of 
the Ten Commandments, more out of the sermon 
on the mount, more out of the gospels, more out 
of the apocalypse. I want to get more out of all 
these, because there is more in them than I have 
yet reached. Standing before the open Book, I 
pray this day, " Lord illumine the Word to me. 
Show me the wealth of glory which lies beneath 
the old stories. Teach me the depth of experi- 
ence which is hidden in the songs of Zion. Raise 
me to the height of aspiration compassed by the 
wings of the prophets. Lift me to the summit of 
faith trod by the feet of the apostles. The won- 
ders are in thy law, but I cannot see them without 
soul-sight. Until I have soul-sight, they are like 
the well of water which Hagar did not behold; 
like the ram caught in the thicket which Abra- 
ham did not discern ; like the cake prepared on the 
fire which Elijah did not recognize. Light up for 
me the old texts, irradiate for me the time-worn 
phrases, deepen for me the by-gone meaning, re- 



282 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

vise for me the inadequate readings, unlock for me 
the hidden doors, make the Book a new book to 
me, the living voice of my God." 

I am loath to drop this subject, but time is 
inexorable and its command is, " Get ready at once 
to bring your sermon to a close." I wanted to 
enumerate and to elaborate four other things, but 
I cannot ; these things, viz. : Soul-sight gave the 
men of the Book a true view of duty, a large and 
restful understanding of the providences of God, 
a recognition and a knowledge of self, and a clear 
foresight into the future. The apocalypse of John 
is a grand illustration of this last point. The re- 
frain of his writing is this : " I, John saw. I, John 
saw." One grand thing of the future rose before 
him after another grand thing of the future, until 
the future burst into this song of triumph : " The 
kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms 
of our Lord and his Christ, and he shall rule 
for ever and ever." To the man who has soul- 
sight the kingdom of Jesus Christ is eternal, and 
blessings of Jesus Christ are eternal. 

I have spoken of soul- sight as it plays its part in 
the men of the Book ; my sermon for the sake of 
balance needs my closing point, which is this : 

Men out of the Book have had large soul- sight 
as well as the men in the Book, and this has made 
them grand in character and grand in life. 

This point brings soul-sight nearer to us. It is 
telling Bartimaeus that Jesus has actually given 



SOUL-SIGHT, OR A STORY OF JERICHO. 283 

sight to one born blind. There is Milton writing 
"Paradise Lost" and "Paradise Regained," the 
product of soul-sight. There is Bunyan writing 
"The Pilgrim's Progress," the product of soul- 
sight. All of our libraries are full of books treat- 
ing of the great doctrines of God, and unfolding 
the great spritualities, and each book is the prod- 
uct of soul- sight. There are our songs of praise 
full of visions seen by the eyes of the soul. 
There are the Paysons and the McCheynes of the 
pulpit seeing God for the people, and making the 
people see God for themselves. There are the 
martyrs going to the scaffold for Christ's sake and 
singing songs of triumph on the way. Such is 
their power of soul- sight that they take their songs 
out of the future. There are the missionaries of 
the cross, willingly accepting the sacrifices of a 
life in dark heathendom, because they see a king- 
dom of God in every saved soul. There are the 
Christian philanthropists of to-day who are giving 
of their substance to build and support Christian 
institutions, the sole mission of which is to keep 
alive the knowledge of God and set into promi 
nence the great spiritual realities of life. These 
men are guided by soul- sight. Soul-sight is a 
possible thing. Do I want it? That is what I 
do want, for that will make God real to me, and 
Christ real to me, and the Bible real to me. When 
I once get God and Christ and the Word in me, 
then my life will begin to take on its glory ; and 



284 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LAXDS. 

then I shall begin to be in the world a light for 
God, a true witness for Christ, a second Bible, a 
living epistle of truth. Then I shall begin to 
be my best self, and to reach out and up to the 
ideal which the heavenly Father has for me as a son 
of God. Then two worlds will be mine — earth, 
with its magnificent opportunities, and heaven, with 
its results and rewards. 

Hast thou said unto me, O Christ : What wilt 
thou that I shall do unto thee? This is my an- 
swer, " Lord that I may receive my sight — soul- 
sight." 



THE SONGS OF THE PSALM-COUNTRY. 




> 

D 
co 

CO 

H 

Q 
z 
< 

2 

O 
z 

< 

CQ 
W 



XL 

The Songs of the Psalm-Country.* 

" The Book of Psalms." — Acts i. 20. 

My text is almost two thousand years old, and 
the book to which it refers was at least half a 
thousand years old when my text was first written. 
This makes its sacred songs two thousand five 
hundred years of age. During this long, long pe- 
riod, its songs have been serving God, and elevating 
and blessing the souls of men. 

To me there is much that is fascinating in the 
thought that the sacred songs of the ancient cove- 
nant people of God have done holy duty for long 
ages. To sing them is to link ourselves with a 
thousand generations of the grandest men and 

* The most delightful experience which I had in travelling 
through Palestine was the singing of the old Psalms of David. I 
equipped myself for the journey by taking with me a copy of 
Rouse's metrical version. I had committed the larger part of this 
version to memory in boyhood, and then had sung this version and 
this version only in the service of praise. This version is full of 
the rough ruggedness of two and a half centuries ago. but it is 
one of the most literal translations of the Psalms extant. Be- 
sides, in my case, its associations were of the tenderest order ; and 
this gave its rendering of the Psalms an additional meaning and 
power. When I reached the different sacred localities, I sung 
the Psalms which pertained to these. Some of the Psalms I 

x 9 



290 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

women that have ever lived. The prophets sung 
them, Christ sung them, the apostles sung them, 
the early Christian fathers sung them, the martyrs 
sung them, and when we sing them we link our- 
selves with the prophets, and with Christ, and with 
the early fathers, and with the sainted martyrs. 

But the Hebrew Psalms have had a wider life 
even than this. They have had every manner of 
use, and that in every manner of life. With the 
music of psalms the shepherds on the slopes of 
Lebanon and the ploughmen on the plains of 
Bethlehem cheered their toil. A psalm supplied 
the daily grace with which the early Christians 
blessed their morning and evening meal. Martin 
Luther made the Reformation march to the Forty- 
sixth Psalm. Chrysostom in his exile, Wycliffe 
on his death-bed surrounded by enemies, Bunyan 



sung over and over ; almost all of them received at least one 
singing. It is about this famous old Hymn-Book, which gives 
us the songs of the soul, that I wish to speak in this discourse. 
I wish you to see its grand distinguishing characteristics ; the 
height and the depth, the length and the breadth of its spiritual 
thought ; the power it has been in the world ; the characters it 
has built up ; its glorious antiquity ; and its present freshness and 
vitality. It is a book we should use, and use every day, that 
from it we may get spiritual strength, and that by it we may be 
taught how to praise the One Living and True God. The truth 
in these old songs is the old, tried truth of God, and is full of 
everlasting beauty and grandeur and versatility. It is truth 
which is as eternal in its energy as God Himself. It pours out 
from these Psalms just as the sunshine pours out of the old sun 
in the heaven, making new rainbows, putting fresh color into the 
cloud-land, and pencilling new tints on the new-bloomed flowers. 



THE SONGS OF THE PSALM-COUNTRY. 291 

in Bedford jail, all stayed their hearts and renewed 
their courage by the use of the Psalms. 

A verse of a psalm marks the lonely grave that 
lies nearest to the North Pole. The northern- 
most grave on the surface of the earth is at Cape 
Beechy, on the brow of a hill covered with snow. 
In it is buried a member of Captain Nares' Eng- 
lish expedition for the exploration of the country 
about the North Pole. As the dying man looked 
out on the wide snow fields which stretched away 
toward the horizon, the purity about him became 
the emblem of the sinlessness for which his soul 
longed. A large stone covers the dead, and on 
a copper plate is engraved the verse which the 
dying explorer chose, and which meets the eye of 
the Arctic explorer to-day : 

"Wash thou me, and I shall be whiter than 
snow. " 

A verse of a psalm is the motto of England's 
proudest university. The Huguenots at Dieppe 
marched to victory chanting the Sixty-eighth 
Psalm, and the same stately war-song sounded 
over the fields of Dunbar when Cromwell's Iron- 
sides won the day. The modern German army, 
like the old army of the fathers, sung Luther's 
battle hymn, the Forty-sixth Psalm, as late as the 
war of 1870. You know how that war started and 
ended ; it started with the cry raised by the proud 
French, " On to Berlin ! " it ended with the counter- 
cry raised by the Germans, " On to Paris !" Well do 



292 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

I remember how I felt the thrill of both cries and 
how I rejoiced when the men who sung the Forty- 
sixth Psalm made themselves the possessors of 
Paris. It was the fifth verse of the Thirty-first 
Psalm with which our Lord and Master committed 
His spirit into the hands of the Father, and with 
the same verse of the same Psalm Stephen, and 
Basil, and St. Barnard, and John Huss, and Co- 
lumbus, and Luther, and Melancthon, and John 
Knox bade farewell to earth and welcomed heaven. 
Thus the Psalms come to us with a power and 
with a sweetness which have grown with the ages. 
The breath of the Eternal is in them. While this 
is true, there is in them also that which is highest 
and best in man. They carry in them the inspi- 
ration of tender and uplifting associations. When 
we sing them we are linked to a multitude which 
no man can number. There is no river of melody 
which has made glad so many generations in the 
city of God as this river of ancient Hebrew 
Psalmody. 

My text takes us right into the heart of the Old 
Testament, and bids us love and admire and ap- 
preciate the Old Testament. It does this because 
the Book of Psalms, which it exalts before us with 
favor, is the very heart of the Old Testament. 
The Old Testament, in its completeness, has flow- 
ered into the Book of Psalms. 

The Old Testament to-day seems to be having 
a checkered history. It is pre-eminently in dan- 



THE SONGS OF THE PSA LM- CO UN TR Y. 293 

ger of disparagement. It is made the target of 
sharp criticism. Lordly and self-satisfied critics 
are speaking hastily and erroneously about almost 
everything that pertains to it. While this is true 
on the one hand, on the other hand it is equally 
true that there never was an age when God gave 
so many remarkable confirmations of the truth and 
of the accuracy of the Old Testament. This is 
pre-eminently the age of exploration, and almost 
every month the pick and the spade are resurrect- 
ing new and startling witnesses which with one 
voice proclaim that the old Book is true. These 
witnesses are coming from their graves in Baby- 
lonia and 'Assyria and Egypt. Whole libraries, 
which we never knew had an existence, are being 
unearthed, and the books of these ancient libraries 
are telling the very same facts which this sacred 
Book tells. 

The mission which God gave the Hebrews, the 
Old-Testament covenant people, was largely a re- 
ligious mission. It was theirs to receive and de- 
velop the true religion for the whole world. It was 
theirs to prepare the world for and to produce the 
Christ, the Saviour of the world. And this they 
did. This is the reason they are in the Holy Book 
of God. If we are to understand the Christ, we 
must understand them and theirs. Especially 
must we understand their religion and their wor- 
ship. We might as well expect to understand 
England and leave out the Established Church, or 



294 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS 

understand Rome and leave out the Vatican as 
expect to understand the true religion and leave 
out the Hebrews and their altar, and their sacri- 
fices, and their priests, and their prayers, and their 
sacred writings, and their songs of praise. Their 
songs of praise were the final and ultimate form 
of their religion. The fact is, there is nothing 
grand in thought, nothing deep in feeling, nothing 
splendid in action, that does not inevitably run 
into song for expression. Religion always flowers 
in the hymn-book. The hymn-book expresses a 
man's creed, and feelings, and hopes, and ambi- 
tions, and aims, and self. The hymn-book sets 
before the worshipper the goal of the soul. Its 
songs echo among the heights of our possibilities, 
and call us on and up. The great need of the 
Christian Church is a hymn-book that has in it the 
very latest revelations of God, and the very latest 
discovered truths, and the highest visions possible 
to the soul, and the third-heaven experiences of 
those who are living the God-life here on earth. 
Only such a hymn-book can elevate man and build 
him up in the true and grand and the beautiful. 
Such a hymn-book is the Book of Psalms. 

In treating of the Book of Psalms I mean in a 
brief way to direct your thoughts to two of the 
leading characteristics of this sacred Book. In the 
first place 

i. The Book of Psalms is an inspired book. 

Old Testament and New Testament alike de- 



THE SONGS OF THE PSALM-COUNTRY. 295 

clare that these holy songs came by the Spirit of 
God. Those who know the Book best assent to 
this teaching. With them the doctrine of inspi- 
ration is needed to account for the Book. The 
fact is, it is ignorance of the Bible that leads to 
the disparagement of the Bible. The' men who 
loudly mock at the claims of the Word of God do 
not really know the Word of God. This was ex- 
hibited in London once in a club of infidels that 
met weekly for the express purpose of ridiculing 
the Bible. One night a member of the club, filled 
with a sense of humor and hungry for a practical 
joke, took to the meeting a copy of the Book of 
Ruth, which he begged the privilege of reading. 
He first represented that it was a story which had 
just been written. The members of the club lis- 
tened with eager interest. The story held them 
breathless. It finished altogether too soon. Every 
one pronounced it sublime. They called it a mir- 
acle of beauty. They prophesied for its author an 
earthly immortality. You can imagine their cha- 
grin when they were told by the practical joker of 
the club that it was but a part of the Bible, that 
one Book which they all hated and fought, and 
consigned to everlasting oblivion as a mass of rub- 
bish. Every time it is ignorance that disparages 
the Bible and that denies its inspiration. Those 
who know the Book best can account for it only 
by the fact that it is from God, and that holy men 
of old wrote as they were carried along by the 



296 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

Holy Ghost. Concerning the Book of Psalms 
John Bright says : " I am willing to stake on the 
single Book of Psalms the question whether there 
has been or has not been a revelation to man from 
God." Gladstone says: "To the work which the 
Psalms have accomplished, there is no parallel on 
earth. " This is a fair method and an easy method 
which Gladstone sets before us, viz. : Judge the 
Book by what it has done, whether it be of God 
or not. Judge the tree by its fruit. 

Suppose I brought you a book which I claimed 
had recently been discovered among the treasures 
of India, and which had been sent to me by the 
finder. " The book is certainly a marvel. It is an 
old book ; its age is between two and three thou- 
sand years. It is a book of remarkable poems, 
written by different authors covering a period of 
no less than a thousand years. It is full of vivid 
pictures of olden times. In it the writers depict 
their own life and experience. The human nature 
in it is perfect. Hope and fear, and sorrow and joy, 
and defeat and victory are here in thrilling form. 
Great and purifying doctrines are in it. In it are 
perfect ideals of duty. God and man walk its pages 
at their very best. It is full of thoughts which 
inspire the purest and holiest life. In it are mes- 
sages from God full of divinity and sublimity. 
In it are words which are balm to the bruised 
heart, and comfort and new life to the broken in 
spirit. Its sacred lyrics fill out the aspirations of 



THE SONGS OP THE PSALM-COUNTRY. 297 

the loftiest and holiest minds with words as pure 
as their purest thought. Ever since the poems of 
the book were written, they have exerted the most 
wonderful power over the hearts of men. Great 
armies have stood bare-headed to sing them before 
great battles, and have knelt down to repeat them 
after great victories. They have actually revolu- 
tionized human lives and have made new and mag- 
nificent creatures out of both men and women. 
Suppose I could present you such a newly discov- 
ered book dug out of the antique vaults of India, 
and could say all this for the book; there is not a 
person here but would say, ' Above all books I de- 
sire to see that book, and to own it, and to get at 
the heart of it. ' If I should ask you : ' Tell me 
what, in your estimation, is the one word that best 
expresses the quality which has made this book 
what it is to all these different men and times ? ' 
You would answer, ' That one word is inspira- 
tion.' If the poems be what you have described, 
and have done what you have said, they are in- 
spired, and they are fountains of inspiration for 
the reason that they are inspired. If I should say : 
* How can you be sure of this ? We cannot tell 
certainly who wrote them, we cannot tell when 
they were collected ; no man can put his finger 
upon the time or the place when the book was first 
said to be inspired:' your answer would be, 'All 
this matters nothing. We should love to know 
who their authors were if that were possible; but 



29 8 NEW EPISTLES PROM OLD LANDS. 

the authors would gather lustre from the poem:, 
and not the poems gather lustre from the authors. 
It is no matter when or where they were collected, 
the fact that they have been collected and that 
they stay collected is the most significant fact. If 
the most learned men of two thousand years ago 
had written in letters of gold that they were in- 
spired, and if the tablets upon which they wrote 
were seen still among the treasures of the Vati- 
can, that would be nothing in comparison with the 
seal of inspiration which they have in themselves 
in the uplifting and comforting work which they 
have wrought in untold millions of the human 
race.' " 

My fellow-men, such a book is the Book of 
Psalms, and such a work it has wrought among 
men. Here it is in all its marvellousness, and the 
only way I can account for it is by the fact that it 
is a book inspired of God. It lifts men up to God 
because it came down from God. 

In the second place 

2. The Book of Psalms is a book that has grown 
out of human life. 

I have spoken of the divinity of the book, I 
wish to speak now of the humanity of the book. 
The human in it, as well as the divine, is what 
touches, and moves, and sways, and captivates us. 
A New York minister says, speaking in this line : 
" We ought to be grateful that it did not fall down 
from heaven like the fabulous statue of Diana, nor 



THE SONGS OF THE PSALM-COUNTRY. 299 

was whispered into any man's ear by a dove after 
the fashion in which Mohammed said he received 
the Koran ; but God caused it to grow out of ac- 
tual experience and human life. " Each psalm had 
a close connection with the man who wrote it. 
God raised up full men, but men of like passions 
with ourselves, to give these songs of the soul and 
of life to mankind. For example, He raised up 
David to be a psalmist, as formerly He raised up 
Moses to be a lawgiver. To make David a psalm- 
ist He led him through the round of all human 
conditions that he might catch the spirit proper to 
every one and utter it according to truth. He 
found him objects for every affection, that the af- 
fection might not slumber and die. By every va- 
riety of function He cultivated his whole nature 
and rilled his soul with wisdom and feeling. He 
took him to the camp and made him a conqueror, 
that he might be rilled with nobleness of soul and 
ideas of glory. He placed him in a palace that 
he might be filled with ideas of majesty and sover- 
eign might. He carried him to the wilderness and 
placed him in solitudes, that his soul might dwell 
alone in the sublime conceptions of God and His 
mighty works; and He kept him there for long 
years, with only a step between him and death, 
that he might be schooled to write the psalms of 
absolute dependence upon God and His provi- 
dence. David's harp was full-stringed, and all 
the angels of joy and sorrow swept its chords as 



300 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

they passed. The. hearts of a hundred men strove 
and struggled together within the narrow conti- 
nent of David's single heart. 

But let me illustrate how the psalms in this sa- 
cred psalter grow out of life and experience. For 
example, some of the psalms grow out of the tem- 
ple service. Watch one of these temple psalms 
grow. 

The psalmist enters the temple just as the 
priest is about to offer an important sacrifice. 
The worshipper is leading to the altar the victim 
devoted to sacrifice. Noticing the beauty of the 
animal — for it is a perfect animal — he asks the 
priest, " O man of God, are all the animals offered 
in sacrifice as noble-looking as this animal ? " The 
priest replies, " Undoubtedly yes ; no animal that 
has a flaw or blemish in it, or on it, would be ac- 
cepted. The animal must be absolutely perfect. 
It would be an insult to God to offer anything 
else. So particular is God that the animal shall 
be perfect that He commands me to search the 
animal through and through with the sacrificial 
knife. God demands that everything that has to 
do with worship shall be true to the core." At- 
tentively the holy psalmist listens to the conver- 
sation of the priest, and instantly the conversation 
is turned into a psalm to guide the thinking of all 
ages, and to inspire within all true worshippers a 
constant prayer for holiness. The psalm runs on 
this wise : 



THE SONGS OF THE PSALM-COUNTRY. 301 

' Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts : 
Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. 
Create in me a clean heart, O God : 
And renew a right spirit within me." 

Noticing the Urim and Thummim on the breast- 
plate of the priest, the psalmist asks, " O man of 
God, is there any significance in these odd things 
which thou dost treat so reverently and with such 
care ? " The priest replies, " Certainly. The 
Urim means ' light ' and the Thummim means 
1 perfection,' and both together mean that God 
will guide His people in the way of light unto 
final perfection, if they will but put themselves 
under His guidance." 

Attentively the psalmist listens, and instantly 
this conversation also is turned into a psalm which 
runs on this wise : 

" Lord, lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us. 
Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, 
And afterward receive me to glory." 

Standing before the high priest in his full pon- 
tifical robes, the psalmist notices that on the hem 
of his sacred robes there are little golden bells. 
He asks the holy man, "Why, O holy man, are 
these bells on thy sanctuary robes, and why do 
they give forth their pleasant music? " The high 
priest answers, " These bells are on my robes for 
the sake of the people. It is my duty as their 
representative to go into the holy place and ap- 
pear for them before God, and offer incense upon 



302 XEJV EPISTLES EROM OLD LAXDS. 

the altar of gold. The people remain without in 
silence, and bow their heads in worship. As I 
move about in the holy place performing my duty, 
the bells on my robes tinkle and send forth a 
sweet music. As long as they keep ringing, the 
people know that I am safe, and that God is ac- 
cepting my service and intercession on their be- 
half. They are assured by the ringing bells that 
God is still their God and is pleased to dwell 
among them as their king, and is willing to bless 
them." On hearing this the psalmist accompanies 
the high priest to the door of the tabernacle and 
joins the throng of waiting worshippers without. 
The high priest goes within, and the psalmist wor- 
shipping without hears the continual ringing of 
the golden bells. His soul thrills with the thought 
that God is receiving and blessing Israel in and 
through the high priest, and he receives then and 
there a poetic inspiration, and out from his heart 
leaps a song of praise. It is the Eighty-ninth 
Psalm : 

" Blessed is the people that know the joyful sound: 
They walk, O Lord, in the light of thy countenance. 
In thy name do they rejoice all the day : 
And in thy righteousness are they exalted. 
For thou art the glory of their strength : 
And in thy favor shall our horn be exalted. 
For our shield belongeth unto the Lord ; 
And our King is the Holy One of Israel. " 

For example, some of the psalms grow out of 
the majestic scenes which are witnessed in na- 



THE SONGS OF THE PSALM-COUNTRY. 303 

ture. These set the human soul on fire, and out 
springs a psalm. Travellers tells us what a deep 
meaning these poems gather when you come to 
stand in the very scenes where they were written. 
The great multitudes, for instance, stand in the 
portico of the temple, and witness a thunder-storm 
come sweeping up from the Mediterranean. It 
strikes Lebanon, and the cedars bend and break 
in the tempest. It drives down the hill of Her- 
mon, roars through the wilderness, and at last 
breaks over Jerusalem in great torrents of rain. 
Then the sun comes out again and all is still. 
But out of that thunder-storm there has come a 
psalm. The mantle of inspiration has fallen on 
a psalmist in the witnessing crowd, and the Twenty- 
ninth Psalm pours from his heart, not as men sing 
of the storm now, for to him God informs and fills 
the storm. The psalm runs on this wise : 

" The voice of the Lord is upon the waters: 
The Lord of glory thundereth : 
Even the Lord is upon many waters. 
The voice of the Lord is powerful : 
The voice of the Lord is full of majesty. 
The voice of the Lord breaketh the cedars ; 
Yea, the Lord breaketh in pieces the cedars of Lebanon. 
The voice of the Lord cleaveth the flames of fire. 
The voice of the Lord shaketh the wilderness : 
The Lord shaketh the wilderness of Kadesh. 
The Lord will give strength to his people : 
The Lord will bless his people with peace." 

The man quivers with a sense of the sublime, 
and he puts a quiver into his psalm. 



3<H NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

On another occasion the psalmist stands one 
starry night under the open dome. He is face to 
face with immensity. His mind plunges out into 
infinite depths, and up into infinite heights. The 
universe is before him; the countless stars, un- 
measured and immeasurable thoroughfares of glory, 
steeps of worlds, oceans of constellations, great 
burning orbs which could swallow up our sun with- 
out adding a perceptible beam to their splendor ; 
great massive worlds which could swallow up our 
earth without adding a perceptible sprinkle of dust 
to their vast magnitude ; great starry kingdoms 
whose tremendous orbit is an infinity, and whose 
revolution is an eternity. The psalmist is over- 
awed by the scene, and he pours his feelings into 
a psalm. 

" O Lord our Lord, 

How excellent is thy name in all the earth ! 

Who hath set thy glory upon the heavens. 

When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, 

The moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained : 

Then say I : What is man, that thou art mindful of him ? 

And the son of man, that thou visitest him ?" 

For example, psalms grow out of the religious 
experience of the writers. Here is one case. 
David is converted, but he reaches conversion 
through the bitter conviction of sin. It is a long 
while before he can throw himself upon the mercy 
of God and believe that there is pardon for him. 
He is too vile to be forgiven, he has gone too far 



THE SONGS OF THE PSALM-COUNTRY. 305 

into sin. That is what he thinks, and the thought 
plunges him into a horrible darkness. But at last 
the light breaks, and he sees that where sin 
abounds grace doth much more abound. God 
takes away his sin and the result is, before he 
knows it, he is putting the story of his conversion 
into a psalm — the Fortieth Psalm. As the old 
Scotch version has it the psalm opens thus : 

' ' I waited for the Lord my God, 
And patiently did bear : 
At length to me He did incline, 
My voice and cry to hear. 

4 ' He took me from a fearful pit 
And from the miry clay, 
And on a rock He set my feet, 
Establishing my way. 

" He put a new song in my mouth, 
My God to magnify : 
Many shall see it, and shall fear 
And on the Lord rely." 

For example, psalms grow out of the daily avo- 
cations of the writers. This is an instance : David, 
the poet-shepherd, follows his flocks, guides them, 
defends them, seeks out new pastures for them, 
takes them through the grim passes where the 
wild beasts lurk — the valley of the shadow of 
death. He never for a moment fails in his care 
over them, and so at last, on some high day of his 
soul, an inspirational day, a day after he has had 
a hard time defending and caring for his charge, 
20 



SO 6 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LAXDS. 

the thought comes to him that he himself is a 
charge to God, just as his flocks are a charge to 
him. The result is, out of this tender thought 
of his dependence upon God springs a psalm, a 
psalm which lights up his shepherd-life with the 
beauty of a holy and an instructive analogy : 

" The Lord is my shepherd ; I shall not want. 
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures : 
He leadeth me beside the still waters. 
He restoreth my soul : 

He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. 
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, 
I will fear no evil, for thou art with me : 
Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. 
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine 

enemies ; 
Thou anointest my head with oil ; my cup runneth over. 
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my 

life: 
And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever." 

This psalm is a word-painting taken from a life 
filled with an intense sense of the constant pres- 
ence of God. 

In the third place 

3. The Book of Psalms is a sifted and full book. 
It is true that there are only one hundred and fifty 
psalms, but Athanasius tells us that the present 
selection of one hundred and fifty was made out of 
three thousand psalms, which at that time were 
sung on the hills and in the valleys of Judea. 
Two thousand eight hundred and fifty psalms re- 



THE SONGS OF THE PSALM-COUNTRY. 307 

jected out of three thousand ! Certainly the sift- 
ing was severe : and certainly in the one hundred 
and fifty we must have the very finest of the wheat. 
I suppose that is just about the proportion of the 
hymns written which are worth singing and worth 
preserving for our praise. One hundred and fifty 
out of three thousand ! My point is this : These 
one hundred and fifty are very full. They have a 
fulness of variety. Let me give but a fraction of 
their variety. The Twenty-third Psalm is a solo. 
The Seventh Psalm is a prayer. The Forty-third 
Psalm is a soliloquy. The Twenty-second Psalm 
is "The Story of the Cross." The Twenty-fourth 
Psalm is an anthem. The One Hundred and 
First Psalm is a " Song of the Home." The One 
Hundred and Fourth Psalm is a tone-painting of 
nature as seen from the summit of some Rigi. 
The Seventy-eighth Psalm is a recital of national 
history. The One Hundred and Nineteenth 
Psalm is a sermon on God's Law. And the One 
Hundred and Fiftieth Psalm is a grand hallellu- 
jah chorus with a full orchestra. 

But this enumeration of variety has to do only 
with the form in which we find the Hebrew 
psalms : what is more important is the fulness of 
the book in regard to thought and substance. 

In the book substance . surpasses form. Here 
we find pure doctrine and pure life. The ideal 
man is portrayed here, and in the midst of active 
life, as in the Fifteenth Psalm. You have here 



308 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

also the great fact of immortality. You have it in 
such expressions as these : 

1 ' God will redeem my soul from the grave : 
For he shall receive me. " 

" As for me, I shall behold thy face in righteousness. 
I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness." 

' ' Thou wilt show me the path of life : 
In thy presence is fulness of joy : 
At thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore. " 

" Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, 
And afterward receive me to glory. 
Whom have I in the heaven but thee ? 
And there is none upon the earth that I desire beside thee. 
My flesh and my heart faileth : 
But God is the strength of my heart, 
And my portion forever." 

The book excels in its presentation of God, and 
His attributes, and His life. For pure praise it 
leads all hymnology. When hymn-writers want 
to put exalted praise into their hymns, they have 
to go to the Praise Psalms of the Hebrews and bor- 
row from these. Reverence is of Hebrew birth. 
Not only is God here, but Christ is here. In the 
Fortieth Psalm we have His incarnation pictured 
In the Twenty- second Psalm we have His cruci- 
fixion pictured. Listen : 

' ' They gave me gall for my meat : 
And in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink : 
The assembly of the wicked have enclosed me : 
They pierced my hands and my feet. 
They look and stare upon me. 
They part my garments among -them 
And cast lots upon. my vesture." 



THE SONGS OF THE PSALM-COUNTRY. 309 

If that be not the story of the cross, what is it ? 
So fully is Christ in the Book of Psalms that it 
gives us the precise words which He uttered on the 
cross — His cry of soul-abandonment : 

" My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" 

And the precise words which He uttered with 
His dying breath : 

" Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit." 

To all this must be added the fact that the deep 
spiritual life of the worshipping soul of man finds 
a large and ever-recurring place in the Book of 
Psalms, Its psalms were the outgrowth of the 
religious experience of the Old-Testament wor- 
shippers. They voiced their inner life. Where 
can you find purer thought, or more majestic sen- 
timent, or greater pathos of devotion, or deeper 
confession of sin, or more of the spirit of worship, 
or a greater joy over pardon, or a loftier adoration, 
or a clearer conception of God ? Name a single 
holy principle that cannot be found in the Hebrew 
psalms, or an aspiration, or a doctrine, or a noble 
type of life, or a blessed experience of the immor- 
tal soul, or any subject whatever calling for praise. 
Find me if you can a man in this New-Testament 
dispensation who embodies or equals all that is 
grand and good in the old Hebrew psalter. There 
is no such person on this side of the Gates of 
Pearl. The Old Hebrew psalmists took their harps 



31 o NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

and boldly soared to the very walls of the celes- 
tial city, and rivalled the songs of the choristers 
who strike their harps and sing under the holy 
and musical shadow of the Tree of Life. 

My fellow-men, do I err in thus lauding the 
Book of Psalms ? Mark what the book has done. 
It has given the world those heroes of faith men- 
tioned in the Westminster Abbey of the Bible, the 
eleventh chapter of the Hebrews. The prophets 
were educated under it. It made Isaiah, and 
Daniel, and Samuel. More than this, it refreshed 
and satisfied the human nature of Jesus Christ. 
I tell you we people of the nineteenth century 
should have a profound respect for the hymn book 
which Jesus Christ used, and which satisfied and 
built up and made perfect His human nature. 

In closing let me ask you, How many of the 
psalms in this wonderful book can you sing? 
How many of them can you make your own ? The 
answer to this question will gauge your spiritual 
standing, and will tell just where you are in the 
religious life. Can you sing the Fortieth Psalm, 
the psalm which celebrates conversion ? Can you 
sing the Thirty-second Psalm, which expresses the 
joy of the man who has been pardoned ? Can you 
sing the One Hundred and Thirty-first Psalm, the 
psalm which celebrates the incarnation of the 
grace of humility ? Can you sing the First Psalm, 
the psalm which describes a right life lived before 
God? Can you sing the Fifteenth Psalm, the 



THE SONGS OF THE PSALM-COUNTRY. 311 

psalm which gives a vivid picture of the worship- 
per who is accepted by the Lord? Can you sing 
the Twenty-third Psalm, the psalm of calm assur- 
ance in God? Into how many of these holy and 
divine psalms can you pour your religious experi- 
ence and find that mould and experience exactly 
correspond? Brethren, let us aim more at climb- 
ing to the grand soul heights in God's landscape 
of sacred and inspired psalmody. Let us prize 
more, and reverently use more this holy book of 
praise, which begins with a Benediction and ends 
with a Hallelujah. 



THE PROPHETS OF THE HOLY LAND. 







Si 

< £ 

u -2 



N 

< £ 

X £ 

a 

u 



XII. 

The Prophets of the Holy Land. 

" Since the days that your fathers came forth out of the land 
of Egypt unto this day, I have even sent unto you all my proph- 
ets, daily rising up early, and sending them." — Jer. vii. 25. 

The prophets are not honored and used as they 
should be. And yet they are the grandest men of 
inspiration ; and yet the principles which they ut- 
tered are the everlasting principles which make 
for righteousness ; and yet many of their predic- 
tions canopy the age in which we live, and are 
working themselves out into realities before our 
eyes ; and yet the golden promises which they ut- 
tered in the name of God are the very things that 
make the future the golden age to Christian faith. 
What would the future be to the Church of God 
if the Seventy- second Psalm and the sixtieth chap- 
ter of Isaiah were never to be translated from the 
printed page into living facts ? 

The grandest period of the Church of Christ is 
as yet an unrealized thing, and this is what we 
men of America are taught by the old Hebrew 
prophets, who have painted the future of the Chris- 
tian Church in their books of prediction. Each 
prophet stands forth in his individuality, and is 



318 XEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

the centre of a wide and interesting historic circle. 
Shining singly, each one is a brilliant star; but 
grouped together they are what De Costa calls " a 
solar system of men of God." They were great 
men in the ages away back when contemporary 
nations produced men of immortal renown. For 
example, when Homer was putting the story of his 
nation into undying verse, and when Lycurgus was 
framing laws for Sparta, Jonah was preaching the 
mercy of God to the Gentiles and saving that great 
city Nineveh. He was making a history worthy 
to be written by the pen of God. While Romulus 
was building Rome, Isaiah and Micah and Na- 
hum were building up the kingdom of Judah in 
righteousness, and thus giving it perpetuity. 
While zEschylus, the theologian of heathendom, 
was laying down the system of ethics for the 
Greeks, Haggai and Zechariah were breathing 
spiritual life into the Jews, and giving them the 
nerve power and the heart force to lift their tem- 
ple from its ashes, and make it once more the pride 
of Jerusalem. While Socrates, the reformer of 
heathendom, was trying to purify his people, and 
while he was dying as a martyr for his faith, Mal- 
achi was putting the Jewish nation into the fur- 
nace that he might burn out of it all the dross 
and make it every whit pure gold. The Hebrew 
prophets were grand men, and that in the ages 
which produced grand men. They towered amid 
conspicuous contemporaries, They were all of 



THE PROPHETS OP THE HOLY LAND. 319 

them magnificent personalities, from Samuel to 
Malachi — or, to sweep a broader field, from Enoch, 
the seventh from Adam to John the Baptist, to 
whom the great proud city of Jerusalem, rising 
en masse, went out into the wilderness. 

In this study we wish to take only a general 
survey. We simply want to climb the Arch of 
Triumph and take a bird's-eye view of the Paris of 
prophecy. We want simply to go to the summit 
of Pisgah, and take an outward look over the shin- 
ing land. The one question which is to act as our 
guide is 

I. Who Were the Hebrew Prophets ? 

1. The Hebrew prophets were the mouthpieces of 
God. 

God selected them, and God commissioned 
them ; and God put His messages into their hearts ; 
and God impelled them to utter these messages. 
God made them predictors of the events of the 
hidden future, and also preachers of the present 
truth and inculcators of present duty. When 
they uttered predictions or issued commandments, 
this was the solemn formula with which they be- 
gan : "Thus saith the Lord." They were the in- 
timate friends of God, living near the gates of 
heaven and overhearing the counsels of Jehovah. 
This the people recognized, and hence they re- 
ceived them as the oracles of heaven and the me- 
diums of divine communication. They were the 



320 HEW EPISTLES .-ROM OLD LAXL 

medium of communication between God and the 
Hebrews, just as the Bible is the medium of com- 
munication between God and us. They were 
among the people as moral dramatists, and as a 
public conscience, and as a walking law. 

Because they were the representatives of God 
among the people, the sweep of their office was 
vast, and the works which they performed were 
many and various. The guardianship of God is 
universal, so their guardianship swept the whole 
nation. They were national watchmen. They 
watched the throne with its king and its surround- 
ing princes. They watched the people in their 
public and private life. As the servant of God 
the prophet held himself ready to receive any com- 
mission from God, and to do any work assigned by 
God. In the name of the Lord he anointed kings, 
and in the name of the Lord he rejected and de- 
posed them. In the name of the Lord he pre- 
dicted famine and inaugurated revolutions and 
began reformations. In the name of the Lord he 
denounced a corrupt priesthood and waged an un- 
relenting war against it. 

His office and its functions had to do with all 
the relations of life over which God has authority. 
Hence the old Hebrew prophet in his faithful per- 
formance of duty revealed the unchangeable will 
of God for man in all ages and in all spheres of 
life. Hence the Hebrew prophet will always be 
a living power in humanity. 



THE PROPHETS OF THE HOLY LAND. 32! 

2. The Hebrew prophets were the children of 
the people. 

The prophethood was a democracy in a mon- 
archy, and as such it asserted and guarded the 
rights of the people. This was the reason the 
people stood by the prophets and sustained their 
schools. Their schools were rooted in popular 
esteem. The people looked upon them as from 
among themselves, and as champions of the sover- 
eignty of the people, as well as of the sovereignty 
of God. They were considered the people's de- 
fence against priestcraft, and kingcraft, and all 
wicked oppressors. 

This was the true view. The prophets were of 
the people and for the people. They were like 
their God. God is the truest friend of the people. 
The popular and democratic and independent char- 
acter of the prophets is seen in this. Although 
they wielded a great influence, yet they were not 
inducted into office by any ecclesiastical authority. 
There was no prophetic succession. They were 
not even continuous, but were occasional. They 
rose up here and there, by the impulse of their 
nature, when God filled their nature with His own 
Spirit. Only men of certain families could be 
priests, but persons of all the families of the na- 
tion could be prophets when divinely moved. That 
they might be of the people, and command the 
love and support of the people, God chose them 
from all tribes. So democratic was the prophet- 



322 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

hood that in two instances eminent prophets were 
women; and one of them, Huldah, was of such 
reputation that to her, though Jeremiah was still 
alive and in full authority, King Josiah sent for 
advice in impending public danger. There is 
always a reason for the sway of power by a class, 
and one reason for the sway of prophetic power in 
Palestine was this : The prophets were men from 
the people, and the people recognized them as 
their kindred, and trusted them and loved them as 
such. God knew the power of a democratic class, 
and hence He .saw to it that His prophets consti- 
tuted such a class. 

3. The Hebrew propJiets were men of distinct 
individuality. 

In them we find diversity of individuality in 
union with oneness of aim, and of faith, and of 
life. Run through their pages and you will ever 
see the same protest for truth and justice and 
mercy; the same messages of wrath for the op- 
pressor the cruel and the impious ; the same right- 
eous care for the widow and the fatherless and 
the stranger. While they bore the same messages 
and preached the same principles and predicted 
the same grand coming events, still these mes- 
sages and principles and predictions all received 
the stamp of their individuality, and worked among 
the people in beautiful diversity. They were like 
the same thrilling songs translated from the brain 
of the master composer into living tones by means 



THE PROPHETS OF THE HOLY LAND. 323 

of the ringing cornet and the pealing organ and 
the sweet-voiced lute. The songs are one and are 
perfect ; but they all bear and express the individ- 
uality of the instrument which makes them vocal. 
There is as much variety among the prophets of 
the Old Testament as there is among the apostles 
of the New Testament. The plaintive Thomas is 
matched by the plaintive Jeremiah. The lute na- 
ture of John is matched by the lute nature of Isa- 
iah. The heroism and logic of Paul are matched 
by the heroism and logic of Elijah. The practi- 
cal James is matched by the practical Micah. 
The traitor Judas finds his counterpart in the trai- 
tor Balaam. 

So distinct is the individuality of the Hebrew 
prophets that they can be easily characterized and 
classified. We can deal with them and designate 
them by their leading traits, as historians have 
dealt 'with and have designated the great men of 
the world among the ancient nations. ^Eschylus 
is called the theologian of heathendom. Plato 
is called the prophet of heathendom. Epictetus 
is called the saint of heathendom. There is a 
classification of the Hebrew prophets as clear and 
as distinct as this classification of the heathen 
sages. Among the Hebrew prophets we have 
Samuel the organizer; Elijah the national re- 
former; Jonah the revivalist; Isaiah the theo- 
logian and nationalist; Jeremiah the individual- 
ist, the subjective preacher, the man who appeals 



324 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

to the conscience; Hosea the analyst; Micah 
the practical utilitarian; Ezekiel the priestly 
ritualist; Daniel the apocalyptist ; Haggai and 
Zechariah the reconstructionists. 

But why set forth the individualism of these 
men? To show that temperament and natural 
constitution should never be considered a barrier 
to a religious life. In the Hebrew prophets all 
manner of temperaments were religious, and ren- 
dered effective service to God and His cause. To 
show that our individuality is a gift from God to 
give variety to the truth, which should always be 
embodied and incorporated in human life. When 
we spoil our individuality, and refuse to work for 
God along its line, we spoil one of God's plans ; 
and in a degree we narrow divine truth and make 
it monotonous. 

4. The Hebrew prophets were men who had, back 
of their words, a fine type of character. 

Using italics, we would say, they were men. 
Their personality will bear the severest investiga- 
tion. Their characters will stand the fiercest fires 
of the crucible. Some men of high professions 
are but bushels of chaff; they were bushels of 
wheat. Some men are but bundles of shavings ; 
they were solid timber. They were men of ad- 
vanced views concerning personal purity and dig- 
nity ; and there was a striking and noted concord- 
ance between their views and their lives. They 
were honest men, and fearless men, and liberal 



THE PROPHETS OF THE HOLY LAND. 325 

men, and self-denying men. Their personality 
shone with spiritual graces and holy traits. When 
duty required sternness, and when nothing else 
would do, they were stern. On such occasions not 
the priest, nor the king, nor the people had any 
terror for them. On such occasions they stood 
before the world in their solitary grandeur. But 
sternness was put on as a duty; it was not the 
habit of their life. The habit of their life was 
gentleness and lovableness and humility. The 
Hebrew prophet was the sweetest-spirited man in 
the whole kingdom. He was the man whom the 
people delighted to have near them, and to partake 
of their hospitality. This is what the Shunam- 
mite woman teaches us when she builds a chamber 
upon the wall for Elisha. When men possess and 
exert a tremendous power in the world and push 
the cause of God on to success, there is always an 
explanation of their power and success. The ex- 
planation of the power and success of the old 
Hebrew prophets was this : Back of their warn- 
ings and counsels and confession of faith was 
a royal and magnificent moral and spiritual per- 
sonality. They were men. They were pure and 
lovable characters. They were self-abnegating 
and consecrated heroes, who put their lives and 
all their possessions into their creed. 

There is a lesson just here, and there is a ques- 
tion just here. The lesson is this : For the fur- 
therance of the cause of God, we must have men 



326 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

as well as principles ; we must have character as 
well as creed. The question is this : What is our 
personality doing for the cause of God ? Is it at- 
tracting men or repelling men? There are multi- 
tudes of grand principles and creeds in the world, 
but they meet with little or no success, and the 
reason is this : They are not married to men, men 
of the Hebrew-prophet stamp. They are crippled 
and thrown into disrepute by the weak personality 
of their professed advocates. There is no use in 
talking, you cannot make even holy and heavenly 
principles effective without and apart from effec- 
tive men. Men are to principles what the cannon 
is to the cannon ball. Men with no larger calibre 
than a toy pistol cannot hurl against the fortress 
of the foe principles which are the size of cannon 
balls. For the victory of the truth we want men ; 
men with a large calibre of faith and a large cali- 
bre of liberality. 

One of England's greatest statesmen was asked 
by a friend if he thought a certain measure would 
pass through the Parliament? His quick reply 
was : " It will not." His friend began to dispute 
his decision, and to forecast and to reason with 
him as to the righteousness of the cause. The 
statesman replied : " I acknowledge that the cause 
possesses all that you claim for it, and I believe 
that it ought to succeed ; but nevertheless it will 
not, and the reason is, it has not the right kind of 
men as its advocates. They have not the charac- 



THE PROPHETS OF THE HOLY LAND. 327 

ter and the consistency that hold the respect of 
their fellow-men." Brethren, principles are not 
everything; creed is not everything. Principles 
and creeds of the very best type are lying all 
around us, utterly powerless, because they are di- 
vorced from the right personality and the right 
character. 

I know professed Christians who claim that 
their church has the creed of creeds. In relig- 
ious matters they are as big-feeling and as self- 
important as old Diotrephes, who, in the days of 
the Apostle John, wanted to make all the slates 
for the Church. They are so stiff with orthodoxy 
that they are brittle. They are sectarian to the 
last atom of their orthodox body. They are not 
only in a rigid Church, but more than that, they 
are bitter partisans in the most rigid party of their 
rigid Church. Their constant cry is, " Stand by 
the principles of the Church." So heavily do their 
principles weigh upon their souls that they have 
grown stern and unattractive and severe. Now, 
what of these men ? Well, I have seen them ac- 
cept and tenaciously hold positions at the head of 
practical interests connected with their congrega- 
tions, interests that were vital to their congrega- 
tions, interests where the principles which they 
professed to believe could best be disseminated, 
and yet they allowed these interests to dwindle 
under their leadership into insignificancy. But 
they could not help this. Yes, they could. Five 



328 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

hundred dollars a year well expended would have 
put life into these schemes committed to them, 
and would have given character and power to their 
principles and to their congregations. But they 
did not have five hundred dollars to contribute, 
and it would have been a mortification for them to 
have handed these interests over to others who 
had. But they did have five hundred dollars 
which they could have contributed, they had tens 
of thousands upon tens of thousands stored away. 
You men with your tens of thousands and fifties 
of thousands accumulated, and banked, and stocked, 
and invested, you want to marry your thousands 
to your principles. You want to tell your souls 
that these thousands belong to God, and that 
they are just so much Church money. If you 
are large talkers and high professors of a high 
creed, then you must be large givers. Common 
honesty and common consistency require this. If 
from your accumulated thousands you give only 
hundreds during the year to the support of your 
boasted principles, your creed is too large for your 
moral and spiritual personality. You are nothing 
more than a toy pistol with a quarter of an inch 
calibre. Use your little calibre for firing paper 
wads of mere conjecture concerning truth, but 
attempt not to handle or hurl God's great cannon 
balls of principles, given from the armory of heav- 
en for respectable guns. Toy pistols and cannon 
balls are a grotesque and an absurd mismatch. 



THE PROPHETS OF THE HOLY LAND. 329 

Liberality is the test of a man's creed. The prin- 
ciples of God must have men to impel them be- 
fore they can be effective. What the modern 
Church wants above all things to-day is a large 
enforcement of men. We have the principles of 
God formulated and expressed by the unerring 
Spirit of Inspiration, and glowing upon the pages 
of the holy word ; what we need is a reproduction 
of men after the type of the old Hebrew prophets, 
who will and who can put a telling and magnifi- 
cent personality back of God's principles. 

Such are some of "the characteristics of the old 
Hebrew prophets. They were, all of them, the 
major prophets and minor prophets, heroes of God. 
We should bless God for them, for they have 
not ceased to serve the world. By their writ- 
ings they still live and still inspire humanity. 
We feel their faith, and their heroism, and their 
loyalty. They shame our timid treasons. They 
teach us how to be true witnesses. They put into 
our hands forged thunder bolts to hurl against the 
strongholds of sin and Satan. When we want to 
call sin by its right name, and to administer to it 
its merited rebuke, we are compelled to open their 
books and quote their words. Their characters 
stand before us, the embodiment of everything 
morally solid and praiseworthy. The prophet 
power is still a power in the world, and it will con- 
tinue to be unto the end of time. 

There are some practical points which we should 



33° NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

gather from this study. They are^such as these: 
i . A human life becomes great only as God is 
admitted into it. 

The prophets were great : but the prophets were 
men of God. God and His rule in the universe 
were realities to them. Loyalty to God was their 
motto in life. They recognized the rights of God, 
and the crowning of God was their supreme pur- 
pose. The surrender of self to God was their 
daily exercise. They kept constantly saying to 
their souls, " We are the Lord's : and we are sepa- 
rated from the world." This separation unto God 
made them the exponents of the possibilities of 
God-fearing men. God was to their life what the 
vital sap is to the life of the tree. The tree when 
filled with vital sap is robed in leafy glory, and 
is crowned with desirable fruit; but when the vi- 
tal current is taken out of it, it becomes black and 
barren and crumbles away. Put God into a 
man's life, and he becomes a Samuel, a Micah, a 
Jeremiah. Put God into a man's life, and he be- 
comes a Paul, a Stephen, a Luther, a Calvin, a 
Knox. What men in history can compare with 
these men of God, or with their kindred in the 
different ages ? God is knocking at the doors of 
your nature by His gospel and by His Spirit. 
Have you opened the doors of your nature to God ? 
How much of your thinking does He control? 
What place has He in your plans ? What propor- 
tion of your time does He control ? What en- 



THE PROPHETS OF THE HOLY LAND. 33 1 

thronement has His law in your heart? What 
proportion of your substance do you give Him? 
If others were writing of you, could they call you 
"a man of God"? If God spoke of you, could 
He speak of you as He spoke of the prophets and 
call you His servant ? If we are not as the proph- 
ets, it is not God's fault. It is our fault ; because 
we are keeping God out of .our lives. We may if 
we will, says the Apostle Paul, be filled with all 
the fulness of God. If we were, our lives would 
be different. 

2. We owe the truth a lovable personality. 

Such a personality the prophets gave the truth. 
In them we find that a grand personality is the 
grandest of all possible things. There is nothing 
that can make the truth so powerful. The truth 
is like a perfect composition in music. Perfect 
as the piece of music is, everything depends upon 
the way the notes are lifted from the printed page 
and translated into sound, and upon the kind of 
instrument which is used in rendering it. Let it 
be rendered by a spluttering banjo, and it will 
sound more like a farce than a grand masterpiece. 
But let it float out into the stillness of the night 
from the soft flute, or let the solemn- toned organ 
breathe it into the atmosphere, and it thrills the 
soul and brings credit to the genius of the musi- 
cal composer. Let the personality that corre- 
sponds with the lute and organ give the truth of 
God to the world. Only through it can the world 



33^ &EW epistles from old laxds. 

be moved by the truth and be led to appreciate the 
God of truth. Truth is like light. Light can be 
intensified and doubled in power by the right 
kind of a reflector. Even so the truth can be in- 
tensified by a proper reflector. A lovable person- 
ality is a proper reflector. A lovable personality 
is more powerful than any page of Scripture. It 
is the page of Scripture reflected. It is more 
powerful than the keenest and most logical and 
most eloquent sermon. You are familiar with the 
story of the minister's eloquent sermon, and the 
sexton's lovable and holy personality. You re- 
member which was the more powerful for Christ. 
There was a man in the congregation at which the 
minister preached for six full months. He was a 
man of influence and a scholar : and the minister 
felt that to win him to Christ would be to win a 
great trophy for his Lord. He took up the salient 
features of the gospel and set these forth with all 
the logic and force he could command. At last 
the man yielded to Christ, and the minister felt 
amply repaid for his long persistent work. Curi- 
ous to know how the man was reached and what 
sermon struck the mark, he asked the man to name 
the sermon. The reply which he received was this : 
" Xo sermon reached me. I was won by the 
sweet Christian disposition and life of the sexton. 
I felt that I would like to be one with him in dis- 
position, and I accepted of his Christ, because I 
saw what his Christ did for him." 



THE PROPHETS OF THE HOLY LAND. 333 

Give me lovable men to carry the truth of God 
to the world, large-paying men, open-handed men, 
the men of the heart, self-denying men, men who 
will attract and not repel — give me these, and you 
may have all the close-fisted, loud-talking, high- 
professing men. 

But we need not go back to the Hebrew proph- 
ets to learn the value of a lovable personality, or 
to see that such a personality is requisite to give 
longevity and force to the thoughts of genius, or 
to give the man of genius himself a claim to great- 
ness and respect. The disclosure which Mr. 
Froude has made of the private life of Thomas 
Carlyle demonstrates this. I have nothing to say 
of the propriety of these disclosures, pro or con, 
but I have this to say : These disclosures have 
shattered the image which the public generally had 
of the character of Carlyle. They have demon- 
strated that even the unregenerate world will dis- 
count a man whose private life is a farce and libel 
on humanity. Whether right or wrong in his ex- 
posures, Mr. Froude has struck the keynote of the 
nineteenth and twentieth century, viz. : that round- 
ness of character, not merely intellectual attain- 
ments, not alone the energies that go to make up 
distinction, is the true test of a man's worth to the 
world, the sum and substance of true greatness. 
A great will, a great intellect, a great moral force 
turned outward upon mankind, and never inward 
upon self, is a travesty on true greatness. It is a 



334 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

reproach to any man to preach morality and re- 
form and advancement while the platform upon 
which he stands is mouldy and decayed with pri- 
vate spleen, inconsiderateness, unkindness, and 
uncharitableness in the smallest details of private 
life. The setting forth of the true personality of 
Thomas Carlyle by Froude has thinned Carry le's 
audience and lessened his influence, because first 
of all the people demand and will have a noble 
personality in those whom they choose as leaders. 
Our times join with the times of the prophets in 
declaring that the crown of all things in this world 
is a loving and noble personality. This must be 
given if thought would live. This must be given 
to the truth if the truth would become mighty and 
would prevail. 

3. Let us remember that great is our responsi- 
bility because great are our privileges. 

We have the words and the example of the 
prophets. They teach us what we may be. They 
teach us how to live. The man who lives in the 
school of the prophets owes the world a ripe Chris- 
tian scholarship. He is under moral obliga- 
tion to be prophet- like. But we have more than 
the prophets. We cannot think of the fact that 
God has spoken through them without recalling to 
memory the opening words of the Epistle to the 
Hebrews : " God, who at sundry times, and in 
divers manners, spake unto the fathers by the 
prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us 



THE PROPHETS OF THE HOLY LAND. 335 

by his Son ! " We are the disciples of Jesus ; and 
he that is least in His kingdom is greater than the 
greatest of all the prophets. He is living in 
greater times, he sees greater sights, he is within 
reach of greater possibilities. 

We go into raptures over the times in which 
we live, and this is right : but let us remember 
that our greater times, which are crowded with 
greater privileges, are crowded also with greater 
responsibilities. The greatness of our responsi- 
bilities should lead us to great reliance upon 
Jesus Christ, who alone can prepare us for meeting 
our responsibilities. 



THE SACRED HEIGHTS OF PALESTINE; 
OR, THE USES OF THE MOUNTAINS. 



22 



XIII. 

The Sacred Heights of Palestine; or, The 
Uses of the Mountains. 

" The mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed, but 
my kindness shall not depart from thee, saith the Lord who hath 
mercy on thee." — Isa. liv. 10. 

We should dwell long enough in the midst of 
the mountains, with their white heights, and their 
rocky massiveness, and their unscalable altitudes, 
to learn that they play an indispensable part in the 
economy of life. They are forces of God perpetu- 
ally working upon the lines of mercy. They are 
nature's bank vaults packed full of inestimable 
riches. They are the great reservoirs in which 
God stores His waters in the form of the crystal 
glacier. Out of them God pours forth those riv- 
ers of life which roll through the continents. The 
Amazon is the child of the Andes ; the Rhine is 
the child of th« Alps; the Mississippi is the child 
of the Rockies; the Nile is the child of Ruwen- 
zori. Thus it is all through this broad earth : it is 
mountain, then glacier, then river, and then man 
with his civilization dwelling upon the banks of 
the river. 



34 2 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

But all this is physical, and pertains to the 
physical use of the mountains. All this is sim- 
ply physical geography. The mountains have a 
higher use than the physical. They are of use 
as view-points from which man may see and pon- 
der and admire the beauties and sublimities and 
immensities of nature, and get the corresponding 
lessons. This use brings the mountains into the 
higher life of man. It makes them sublime prob- 
lems in stone : gateways into the realms of 
thought — moral and aesthetic powers. Placing us 
right in the midst of the picturesqueness of nature, 
the mountains produce food for the intellect and 
for the heart. They show us fascinating and en- 
chaining beauty, and then when they have put us 
under the spell of beauty they say to us, " O man, 
match this beauty of matter with beauty of mind 
and soul. God wants beautiful lives." 

Beauty is part of the gospel of the world. God 
talks to us through beauty, as we all know. Beauty 
in nature is a distinct appeal to us over and above 
all utilities and economies. We know that every 
touch of beauty is for the human eye, and is a 
thought of God for us. There is not a point of 
gold on the insect's wing, nor a curve, nor a color 
in the leaf but is there for us to look at, that the 
higher life in us may be awakened, and that we 
may be made to love beautiful things, so that we 
may rise from the love of beautiful things to the 
love of beautiful ideas, and from the love of beau- 



SACRED HEIGHTS OF PALESTINE. 343 

tiful ideas to the love of beautiful persons, and 
from the love of beautiful persons to the love of a 
beautiful self. The mountains have been called 
nature's symbols of personality, her word of de- 
cision, vigor, outlook, serenity, and self-respect. 

What we say of the vision of beauty which the 
mountains bring us, we may say also of the vision 
of immensity which the mountains bring us. It 
is an influential thing to stand face to face with 
immensity, as one does when one looks out from a 
mountain summit. When we stand face to face 
with immensity we breathe deeply, we live broadly, 
we bound up and out, we aspire, we soar. The 
vision of immensity evokes the play of imagination. 
It drives trifles out of our thoughts and makes 
us long for the fellowship of the great. It lifts us 
out of our limitations and starts within us the 
throbbing of unreached possibilities. It acts as a 
revelation of self, and calls us to a life befitting 
self. It demands of the world of humanity moun- 
tain men with snow-white souls, and with charac- 
ters towering toward the moral and spiritual alti- 
tudes of God. A mountain-top with its vision is 
where a man projects himself forward in life, and 
on in life, and up in life. It is the place where 
he makes large plans. In shaping our thoughts I 
ask you to consider two uses of the mountains of 
God. 

i. The mountains are of use as pedestals for 
great historical facts. 



344 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

Where shall we look for the illustration and 
confirmation of this point ? Everywhere. Do we 
open the books of mythology ? There it is. Yon- 
der are the white heights of Olympus holding up 
to universal view the great deeds of Jupiter and 
the gods. Do we open the book of romance ? There 
it is. There is William Tell on one of the spurs 
of Switzerland, and before him his own boy hold- 
ing the target on his head. It was a shot for life 
which Tell made when his arrow struck the apple 
on his boy's head without deviating a hair's breadth 
from his aim. The story of William Tell has 
planted the seed of liberty in the heart of every 
boy in the Swiss republic. Do we open the biog- 
raphies of our great men ? There it is. In human 
biography the mountains are connected with the 
deepest thoughts and holiest ambitions of lead- 
ing men. When they would wrestle with giant 
problems they betake themselves to the mountains, 
that the depths of their souls may be stirred by 
contact with the depths of great nature. Goethe 
studied in the heart of the Alps ; and so did Mad- 
am de Stael; and so did thousands of others of 
the children of genius. Zoroaster, Moses, Mo- 
hammed, Christ — these all legislated from moun- 
tains. Do we open the book of religious history ? 
We see the same thing, viz. : great facts on moun- 
tain pedestals. The Alps tell the tales of the 
Waldenses, the Highlands of Scotland tell the 
tales of the Covenanters, and the hills of New 



SACRED HEIGHTS OF PALESTINE. 345 

England tell the tales of the Pilgrims and 
Puritans. 

Thus by a general survey, we see that moun- 
tains are thrones in history upon which sceptred 
events sway the thoughts and hopes and destinies 
of men. The gods of mythology rule from Olym- 
pus, and the Muses from Parnassus. Rome rules 
from her seven hills, and Athens from her Acrop- 
olis, and Memphis from her Pyramids. 

But it is not my intention to go through the 
pages of general history in order to illustrate my 
point ; I purposely make the point in order that I 
may get into the Bible. How the holy mountains 
jut up in majesty and grandeur from the pages of 
the Book ! As we see them in the Book they are 
eloquent historians. The Bible shows us that 
there was not a noted mountain in Palestine upon 
which God did not put some important event. He 
made every hill talk of something calculated to 
magnify Himself or His truth, or else call out 
love to Him, or else strengthen faith in Him, or 
else magnify and enforce duty. It would seem as 
though the mountains were made for the events to 
which they are married. 

Take Sinai ! It was just fitted for the giving of 
the law. Its summit was high enough to be 
wrapped around with the thick cloud which was 
Jehovah's chariot; and the plain before it was 
broad enough to hold the millions of Israel in 
such a way that they could see everything and hear 



346 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

everything. And then there were peaks enough 
around, subordinate peaks, to catch and echo the 
thunder which pealed forth and which was intended 
to give majesty to the marvellous scene. Stop 
and in imagination follow just one thunder peal 
as it issues from Sinai ! The one peal explodes 
right above the summit, and then the terrible roar 
runs out on lines in every direction. Some lines 
run through the valleys, and you hear a deep rum- 
ble ; other lines strike the surrounding crests, and 
crag throws the voice to crag until the awful peal 
is echoed and repeated, duplicated and reduplicated, 
a thousand times with deafening and awing effect. 
So completely adapted was Mount Sinai as a 
theatre to the scene that was enacted upon it that 
I believe God away back in the creative era gave 
the subterranean forces which heaved the moun- 
tain into its snowy altitude definite instructions 
how to heave it, and how to shape it, and how to 
surround it. He told all the elements to work 
toward the day of the giving of the law. After 
the giving of the law, he told Sinai to stand just 
where it was to the end of time and proclaim to 
mankind what God had done on that wonderful 
day, and what God had spoken. 

As God used Sinai so He used Calvary. The 
Cross of Jesus Christ must be seen to the ends 
of the earth, and this fact God symbolized by put- 
ting it upon a mountain height. I believe that 
the one great mission of Calvary was to hold up 



SACRED HEIGHTS OF PALESTINE. 347 

the Cross of Jesus Christ, and become the divine 
altar upon which the great sacrifice for the sin of 
the world should be offered. When Jesus Christ 
completed His saving work there, God said to Cal- 
vary, Remain forever and hold in your solid rocks 
the yawning fissures made by the earthquake when 
Jesus Christ was crucified, and tell mankind how 
heaven and earth alike were stirred to their depth 
by the wonderful tragedy. My fellow- men, before 
you can annihilate the holy law of God, you must 
pulverize Sinai ; before you can destroy the Cross 
of Christ you must uproot Calvary. 

You see that the facts which God puts on the 
mountain pedestals are the very facts which man 
needs to know. They are such things as these, 
the Law and the Gospel. Because of this use 
which God makes of mountains, there are some 
mountains standing on earth that seem almost con- 
scious beings, and their presence affects us like a 
living personality. If they could but speak and 
tell what they have seen and felt, they would fill 
the listener with awe, and they would inspire him 
with faith. By the laws of association they do 
speak. They rise before us as perpetual sacra- 
ments of hope. They proclaim God's interest in 
human life, and declare that He who has done 
great things for man in the past will do great 
things for man in the future. He will put other 
facts on other mountain pedestals until every 
mountain summit of the universe shall become a 



34^ NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

historic memorial shaft and a witness to the over- 
rule of God. 

As you turn the pages of God's Book, I would 
have you notice the fulness of human history, and 
especially the fulness of human history in the 
line of the covenant of redemption, as that his- 
tory is read from the mountain tops of Scripture. 

You can decipher the story of the deluge from 
the sides of the rainbowed Ararat ; and the story 
of the exodus and the organization of Israel into 
a nation from the sides of Sinai ; and the story of 
the great reformation from the sides of Carmel, 
and thus on. But we must enter the biography 
of Christ if we would see how complete mountain- 
top history is. There is a mountain-top gospel, 
and a mountain- top biography of Christ. Take 
five mountains that jut up in Christ's experience. 
The mountain of Temptation, and Hattin from 
which He delivered the Sermon on the Mount ; "and 
Hermon, and Calvary, and Olivet. These set forth 
the man Christ Jesus : His immaculate holiness 
which is proof against all the wiles of the Evil 
One; His sublime principles and golden beati- 
tudes ; His inherent and divine glory, which flashes 
through His body as through a crystal and transfig- 
ures Him and shows Him to be the brightness of 
the Father's glory and the express image of His 
Person; His atoning sacrifice for sin on the cross; 
and His ascension to heaven to rule in majesty 
at the right hand of the throne for His people. 



SACRED HEIGHTS OF PALESTINE. 349 

Weave these great five facts together and you have 
the biography of Jesus Christ in all of its grand 
essentials. There is a fifth gospel, a gospel in 
addition to the four which you have in the New 
Testament, and that fifth gospel is the gospel ac- 
cording to the sacred mountains. My fellow-men, 
before you can obliterate the story of Jesus Christ 
from this earth in which He so sublimely lived, 
you will have to grind out of sight and forever 
erase from Palestine the sacred mountains where 
He was tempted, and where He preached His 
wonderful sermon and where He was transfigured, 
and where He died and where He ascended. 

There is one other thought which I wish to ex- 
alt before our minds in speaking of the mountains 
of Palestine which hold up great historical facts. 
It is a practical thought. It is this : These 
mountains which are in the Bible should be within 
us ; they are mountains which should be in our 
lives. We never can become mountain men until 
they are in us and in our lives. There should be 
a Calvary within us for the crucifixion of self : 
"for they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh 
with the affections and lusts thereof." Carmel 
stands for reform, Moriah for sacrifice, Pisgah for 
vision, Zion for worship, Hermon for transfigura- 
tion, Hattin for truth, Olivet for the gate of 
heaven. Now these are the very things which 
we need in life — reformation, sacrifice, truth, 
transfiguration, nearness to heaven. What moun- 



35° NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LAXDS. 

tains have you in your life ? The mountains which 
Moses had 5 which Elijah had 3 which Christ had? 
Have you been reformed ; have you been trans- 
figured ; have you been crucified 3 To all these 
heights of duty and privilege the mountains of 
God are calling you this day. They are preaching 
to you in God*s name by means of and through the 
great historical facts which they lift up — facts 
which stand for human duty, human possibility, 
human aspiration, and human achievement. They 
bid you live away up in the heights of your own 
being; that is, to live in a constant transfiguration : 
for every height of your soul is a mountain of 
transfiguration — a snowy Hermon, where prayer 
and communion with the divine Father cause 
the outflashing of all that is best within man. I 
have reached my second point, it is this : 

2. The mountains are of use as symbols open- 
ing up to us and illustrating high and right con- 
ceptions of God. 

This is by far the grandest use of mountains. 
They are Bibles of stone, and as such they give 
us God and God's thoughts. God is the great 
need of man, and that which brings God to man 
and helps toward a perfect fellowship between 
God and man renders man the finest and most 
effective sen-ice. God brought into a man's life 
makes man, redeems man, transforms man into the 
divine image, and glorifies his entire being. See- 
ing that the mountains are an alphabet designed 



SACRED HEIGHTS OF PALESTINE. 35 1 

to spell out and describe God to our souls, let us 
see if we cannot get some truths about God from 
and through the mountains. 

To do this we must call to our help the divine 
writers. It will be much for us to do if we do 
nothing more than think over after them their 
great thoughts. Many of them use the mountains 
as symbols of God. They see in them pictures of 
the very attributes of God. 

For example, looking up at their massive and 
unchangeable forms the psalmist says, \ey are 
symbols of God's righteousness. " Thy righteous- 
ness is like the great mountains : thy judgments 
are a great deep : O Lord, thou preservest man 
and beast." Such is the vision of David when 
he expects God to defend him from evil and be- 
friend the right. He casts himself upon the right- 
eousness of God, and makes his appeal to it. And 
as he does so the righteousness of God towers be- 
fore his faith as firm and as massive and as reliable 
as the mountains, "Thy righteousness is like the 
great mountains." We poor sinful creatures na- 
turally shrink from the thought of righteousness : 
but after all it is a grand thing that there is such 
a thing as the righteousness of God, and that the 
mountains are not more steadfast than it is. This 
righteousness is ours, and is on our side, and is 
our defence. What would this world of ours do 
if it were not for the righteousness of our God ? 
Tyranny would grind it under its iron heel ; op- 



35 2 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

pression and wrong would rob it and enslave it, 
and all manner of cruel crime would deluge it with 
blood. There is nothing that I more wish to see 
march up and down and through this earth of ours 
than God's righteousness. It means the overthrow 
of iniquity; it means the defence of human rights 
irrespective of race or color; it means civil and 
religious liberty. Evil might as well clash against 
the embedded granite of the mountain as clash 
with the righteousness of God. God's righteous- 
ness forever blocks the way of all evil. 

For example, the prophet Isaiah uses the moun- 
tains as steps upon which he may climb into a 
firm faith in God's power. To him they shadow 
the attribute of God's omnipotence. They are 
the embodiment of power. It took power to put 
them where they are, and by the power of their 
might they hold their places against all opposing 
forces. The storms which sweep our earth in 
majesty are vivid forms of power, and they terrify 
us ; but the storms split themselves into a thou- 
sand harmless parts every time they strike the 
corners of the immovable mountains. The prophet 
is constantly throwing himself back upon the power 
of his God. He solves all perplexing problems in 
Israel by the power of God. And the mountains 
which God weighs in His scales, he tells us are 
measures by which we may begin. to form concep- 
tions of God's omnipotence. To him Lebanon 
says, "The power of God is infinite." He tells 



SACRED HEIGHTS OF PALESTINE. 353 

men everywhere : " God is our refuge and strength, 
a present help in every time of trouble. " God 
stands round about His people as the mountains 
stand round about Jerusalem. 

Thus we see from the way the divine writers 
speak of the mountains that nature not only wit- 
nesseth to the existence of God, but in some re- 
spect also it witnesseth to the character of God. 
Its striking features are similitudes of God's maj- 
esty and glory and power. It is as Paul teaches, 
" We learn of the invisible things of God by the 
things which God has made." 

But our text teaches us a fact in advance of 
anything we have yet reached. It teaches us that 
God Himself interprets the mountains, and that 
He makes them symbolize the greatest of all 
known facts, viz. : His infinite and unchangeable 
love toward the children of men. He says to us : 
" The mountains have been in all ages, and are to 
you to-day the symbols of eternity, they are as 
near to eternal existence as anything nature has: 
but my love is more eternal. For the mountains 
shall depart, and the hills be removed, but my 
kindness shall not depart from you saith the Lord 
who hath mercy upon you." 

This is wonderful. This makes nature talk to 
us of divine love. And what is strange, this old 
message of God, written in the old book of proph- 
ecy in the Old Testament, is the very latest mes- 
sage which science is bringing to man and prov- 
23 



354 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

ing with elaborate arguments. Science to-day 
is making the earth ring with this cry, " God is 
love." It points us to beauty as it is everywhere 
in nature and says, " That is love, and a witness 
of love." A world that is lovely can only proceed 
out of a will that loves. Now the will that works 
in nature always guides its labors into paths which 
make for final loveliness. Why is beauty shot 
into the dead and crumpling leaf of the autumn 
tree ? Because God is love. Why is the scarred 
peak. of the thunder-riven mountain lichened with 
infinite skill until its far-away altitudes gleam like 
battlements of gold ? Because God is love. Why 
is it that the vast depths of the dome overhead are 
tinted with tender azure and not with appalling 
black ? Because God is love. Why is it that the 
appalling storms break into rainbows which display 
the whole gamut of color ? Because God is love. 

Science points not only to the presence of 
beauty in nature as a proof of God's love ; it points 
us to the marvellous way in which nature provides 
us with food and says, " Here again, O man, is the 
love of God." Take, for example, honey, which 
may be called the climax of food. The bees that 
make the honey work among hundreds of strange 
substances. Thousands of bees work, and they 
meet thousands of poisonous plants, but not a 
single bee is deceived, and in perfect confidence 
we eat the fruit of their labor, involving millions 
of selections; and yet we know that if one bee 



SACRED HEIGHTS OF PALESTINE. 355 

made a mistake our life would pay the penalty. If 
we can trust the instinct of the bee, ought we 
not to be able to trust the God who gave it its 
unerring instinct ? The bee has yet to make the 
first mistake and gather poison into the cell in- 
stead of honey. The very bee with its pure deli- 
cious honey teaches that God is love and that God 
is wisdom, and that His love and wisdom are such 
that they can be counted upon, for God changeth 
not. 

All this is on the surface. Nature has deeps, 
and science to-day is searching into the deeps of 
nature and bringing up the proof from these that 
God is love, and that everything in nature culmi- 
nates in love — in God's love to man. 

In the latest book of science which I have read, 
there is a chapter which is called the " Evolution 
of Motherhood." The chapter is wonderful for its 
genius. It says human motherhood stands at the 
head of all motherhood, and at the head of crea- 
tion also; it is the last of God's creative works. 
When God made Eve He went no further in the 
evolution of things. Everything below led up to 
Eve. There is a growth of motherhood down in 
the regions below the human. There is a mother- 
hood down there that knows nothing about its 
children ; it dies before its children begin to 
live. The butterfly deposits its larvae on the leaf 
of the tree, but before its offspring in the larvae 
become caterpillars, and then butterflies, the but- 



35 6 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

terfly which deposited the larvae has long been 
dead. There is in nature a marked and distinct 
grade from the butterfly motherhood up to human 
motherhood, which lives with and loves its chil- 
dren. When God brought the human mother into 
existence He quit evoluting. He said : " I have 
given the world motherhood, and in motherhood I 
have given the world love in the highest possible 
human form, and that is enough. Let love take up 
the task of progress, and build up humane institu- 
tions, and fill the earth with tender and upbuilding 
associations, which will make a heaven out of 
earth." 

But what is the chief teaching of our text/ 
This. The character of God's love to man. And 
what is the character of God's love to man? It is 
unchangeable and eternal. It is a love that out- 
lives the mountains. A love as long-lived as the 
mountains would be a very satisfactory love, but 
not satisfactory enough to suit God. The moun- 
tains stand for geological ages, and geological ages 
are long, long ages. But geological ages, long as 
they are, and symbols of eternity as they are, are 
not long enough for the cravings and the plans of 
God's love as He deals with His people. An Eng- 
lish theologian writes : " We should read these 
words, ' The mountains shall depart and the hills 
be removed ! ' with the tone of scornful disbelief. 
It is an impossibility for mountains to depart. So 
is a change in God's love impossible." That is 



SACRED HEIGHTS OF PALESTINE. 357 

the truth about God's love, but it is not the 
truth about the mountains. The mountains shall 
depart. The mountains are changing. Let us be 
scientifically correct. Scientific correctness only 
magnifies the love of God. Glaciers starting from 
the snow heights are grinding down the mountain 
summits and pulverizing them. The actions of 
heat and cold and water are splitting and disin- 
tegrating the rocks up in the cold altitudes. 
Many a mountain is only a skeleton of what it was 
when it was first heaved from the bosom of the 
earth. The Alleghanies were once three thousand 
feet higher than they are to-day. There are spots 
where the falling debris of the mountain keeps 
us up an almost continual cannonade. There are 
tons and tons of rock dust being carried down to 
the plains by the rivers issuing from the moun- 
tains. There are constant avalanches which em- 
body land-slides and giant boulders and these are 
hurled into the valleys. There is a ruinous crum- 
bling going on all the time. There is not a moun- 
tain on this earth but God has inscribed upon it 
"Dust thou art and unto dust thou shalt return." 
But this crumbling is infinitesimal. It will take 
ages upon ages to level the great heights. Oh, 
yes. That is the point : for God says, " When 
these ages upon ages have come and gone, and 
when they have done their work, and when there 
shall be no more mountains, my love will be still 
wearing the dew of its youth and will only be 



35 8 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

seeing the sunrise of its day." " The mountains 
shall depart and the hills be removed, but my 
kindness shall not depart from thee, said the Lord 
who hath mercy upon thee." Brethren, this is 
the meaning of that monosyllabic description of 
God which the Apostle John gives us when he 
says: "God is love." He is love that never 
changes. 

Do I believe this teaching? I do. Why? I 
believe it because John believed it. But John was 
carried away by a young enthusiasm when he ut- 
tered it. No, he was not. And that is the beauty 
of it. It was an old enthusiasm that spoke in 
John, and not a young enthusiasm. It was a tried 
enthusiasm. When John penned those words he 
was an old man. If you wish to know what John 
went through, read the Apocalypse. That lets you 
into his life. His life was a life of pain and strug- 
gle; filled with visions of dark desolations, of an- 
gels who smite with swords, of phials of wrath that 
pour out plagues of thunders and lightnings. His 
life was tapering to a close, widowed of all its old 
familiar friends. He had felt the fury of kings, 
looked into the face of the mad mob, swooned at 
the terrors predicted. He had known all that 
could crush, and sting, and dishearten, and deaden, 
and dismay ; and yet at the close of this prolonged 
experience of life he pronounces with a sure heart 
and an invincible confidence as the sum of all his 
learning this : " God is love." Let any man be 



SACRED HEIGHTS OF PALESTINE. 359 

able to speak out of a life such as that, and from 
such an experience bear testimony to the unchange- 
ableness of God's love, and I am bound to believe 
him. 

Do I believe the teaching of the text? I do. 
Why? Because wherever I see love in its pure 
form I find that from its very nature it is un- 
changeable. Look at it in the human sphere. 
Years ago a wealthy gentleman in England en- 
gaged himself to a woman of fine position and of 
large natural gifts. He left for California. While 
there fortune favored him until he fairly rolled 
in wealth. But stay ! The wheel of fortune one 
day turned the wrong way, and he found himself 
a beggar. The man, most noble in his love, sent 
back by the next mail a few lines to his fiancee 
releasing her from her engagement. He would 
not have her marry a beggar. He had wooed and 
won her as a man of fortune, and he now sent 
back her release. Some months previous to this 
he had sent her a nugget of gold, which he him- 
self had dug from the earth. When she received 
her release she took that nugget of gold and had 
it changed into a circlet, a ring. This ring she 
sent to him on the first outward-bound ship. It 
was her answer. Engraved in the inner margin of 
the ring was this inscription "Ruth i. 16, I?" 
Opening his Bible at Ruth i. 16, 17, he read her 
message : " Entreat me not to leave thee, or to re- 
turn from following after thee : for whither thou 



360 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LA XL'S. 

goest I will go, and where thou lodgest, I will 
lodge : thy people shall be my people, and thy 
God my God ; where thou diest will I die, and 
there will I be buried : the Lord do so to me and 
more also if aught but death part thee and me. " 
That was human love, yet it was unchangeable. 
I believe that if human love at its best is un- 
changeable, divine love must be infinitely un- 
changeable : and it is. 

Do I believe in the teaching of the text? I 
do. Why? Because it is love's only self -pro- 
tection to be true and unchangeable. It is the 
only way love can be happy. Every time love 
becomes fickle and proves unfaithful to its ob- 
ject, it suffers for its fickleness and unfaithful- 
ness tenfold more than the object against which 
it sins. Now it does not stand to reason that 
love, especially the love of God, is going to in- 
flict upon itself a grievous injury. Last month 
a young man was arrested for some trivial offence 
in the city of New York, and convicted and sent 
to the island. He sent a plea to his father to 
come to his rescue. But the father turned a deaf 
ear to the entreaty of his son. In his anger he 
determined to let him take care of himself and 
learn through humiliation that the way of the 
transgressor is hard. The father's pride had been 
injured, and pride buried his love. When the son 
reached the Island and found what a filthy place it 
was, he made a second appeal to his father ; telL 



SACRED HEIGHTS OF PALESTINE. 3 61 

ing him that he would not allow his dog to be put 
in sucn a place. The father was still deaf to his 
son's appeal saying " he has made his bed and he 
must sleep in it." Forsaken by the one man on 
all the earth who should have befriended him, that 
boy made a desperate effort to escape. But he ut- 
terly failed, he was not a skillful enough swimmer : 
and the next morning his body was washed life- 
less upon the shore of the Island. But what of 
the father who was untrue to his love? The last 
I heard of him, he was on the verge of insanity 
crazed with grief and suffering from a broken 
heart. The one cry that is on his lips to-day is 
this, " I would give the world if I had gone to my 
poor boy." God is not going to wound His own 
love : God is not going to break His own heart by 
going back upon His covenant ones. His love 
will always remain unchangeable, because it must 
be true to itself. God's own happiness requires 
an unchangeable love upon His part. There is no 
bond to trueness stronger than that. 

Do I believe in the teaching of the text? I 
do. Why? Because of what God's love had al- 
ready done. It has given His Son. It has built 
Calvary. It has overlooked the wicked treatment 
it has received from man in the past. It can 
never be treated by man worse than it has been 
treated. Men can do nothing more wicked than 
crucify Jesus Christ. Yet notwithstanding the 
crime of the crucifixion, God continues to love. 



362 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

When I wish to thrill my soul with a picture of 
God's unchangeable love I open the book and read 
the parable of the prodigal son. That is a picture 
of God's love. The unchangeable love of the 
Father is the pith of that whole parable. Is there 
nothing that can change the father's love? Put 
the question to the parable and see. The son 
makes a decided fool of himself, and that is pretty 
bad : but still the father loves. He spends his 
patrimony on harlots. That is awful : but still 
the father loves. He expatriates himself and 
casts in his lot among swine and serves an uncir- 
cumcised gentile and feeds gentile swine, and 
makes himself loathed and abominable to the heart 
of every true Jew. That is awfulness added to 
awfulness : still the father loves. He goes down, 
down, down in the scale of crime and ingratitude 
and disgrace until he touches the bottom of all that 
is mean and sensual and devilish : but still the fa- 
ther loves. When the father sees him a wreck of 
what he once was wending his way home, he cries 
out so that all the neighborhood hears him : " My 
boy shall have the kiss, and the embrace of wel- 
come, and the best robe, and the ring, and the 
fatted calf, and the feast, and the old recognition 
of sonship in the community." That parable is 
only a drama in words. 

There is a drama in real life which sets forth 
the infinitude and eternity and the unchange- 
ableness of God's love. This drama of life is 



SACRED HEIGHTS OF PALESTINE. 363 

the story of the Christ, God's unspeakable gift. 
In that Christ-drama God does more than act 
the part of the father in the prodigal son. " In 
the parable the father waits until the son re- 
turns ; but in Jesus Christ the divine Father can 
not wait for the son's return, but in Christ He 
goes after him into the far country and brings him 
back. Was not that the way it was with you? 
Did you seek God, or did God seek you ? And 
when He found you, did He give you up on the 
first refusal, or upon the second, or upon the 
third? You resisted, He persevered. It was 
with you as it was with the Scotchman who said, 
" It took two to convert me." When asked what 
he did, he said : " I did everything I could against 
my conversion, and God Almighty did the rest." 
The rest was everything. Because God has done 
so much for us already, I believe with Paul that 
He who hath begun the good work of salvation 
in us will perfect it unto the day of Jesus Christ. 
That is, until we shall see Christ and shall be 
transformed by the sight into His glorious like- 
ness. 

I have only one word in closing, and it is this : 
This fact which God makes the mountains teach 
us, His unchangeable love, is just the fact to set 
before our souls as we work with God for the sal- 
vation of men. It is also just the view of God to 
present before men. You never will have atheism 
driven out of the world until you present to the 



364 NEW EPISTLES FROM OLD LANDS. 

world such a God as men will want to have live 
and reign. 

The God of love is such a God. Then also, 
this is just the God who stimulates workers 
among the lost and rebellious. If God be a God 
who continues to love, then we shall not fail in 
our work on God's part. If God had not loved 
Israel, and if He had not kept on loving Israel, 
Israel would never have reached the land of 
promise. Why even Moses gave Israel up. But 
he took up his work anew when he found that God 
refused to give them up. God's love said : " To 
Canaan I have started My covenant people, and to 
Canaan they shall go." Why, such is God's love 
that it saves away beyond our faith. There was 
not a man in all the spirit-filled Christian Church 
of the early apostolic class that believed Saul of 
Tarsus could be saved. There was not one with 
faith sufficient to pray for his conversion. God 
found him, and God was the only one who had 
faith to go after him. When he was converted 
the Church did not believe it, and Barnabas the 
son of consolation was the only man in all Jeru- 
salem who was bold enough to step forward and 
give him the right hand of fellowship. 

Oh, the inspiration that comes from the unchang- 
ing love of God ! It enables us to say with enthu- 
siasm : " I will work for the salvation of sinners, 
because God wants sinners saved, and because 
God loves sinners." In Christian work our hope 



SACRED HEIGHTS OF PALESTINE. 365 

is in God. God loves the lost, therefore we labor 
in God's name and in God's power to save the 
lost. God cares for the lost, therefore we care 
for the lost. Inspired by the love of God ! That 
is our equipment. 



DEC 2 1899 






LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



021 066 379 4 









■ 



